I recently met up with two good friends, a married couple who’ve been together forever, and tied the knot last year. They are the sweetest young couple I know, fiercely loyal to each other, clearly in love and staying that way — and after hearing about just what went into their wedding day and dinner, I’m not surprised they’re as tight as they are. Planning a wedding of that size (huge ceremony! decorations! almost 80 tables of guests!) either tears you apart or binds you for life!
And then they asked me about my own wedding planning… and from my (vague) answers, it became clear that I can be categorized as an anti-bride.
Married couple (MC): Have you decided on a date?
Me: We have our time frame, we’ll just register when it’s convenient.
MC: Found your wedding dress?
Me: Going to pick up something casual, off the rack.
MC: Bridesmaids?
Me: Nah.
MC: Wedding dinner?
Me: Maybe, will think about it later.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about being married. I want the marriage. I just don’t think my personality type (introverted, freaked out if I become the center of attention, stingy with money, tense in the face of formality) can handle a “proper” wedding.
If there must be a wedding, I want it to be a kooky affair. The only time being in a group doesn’t intimidate me is when we’re being silly together, laughing at each other. I want to have a funny anti-wedding.
But a wedding is also about family, and there’s no way my mother will let me be overly eccentric.
Here are three anti-bride ideas that she’s already shot down:
1. A McWedding
Last year, people responded to news of McDonald’s McWeddings in Hong Kong with both amusement and outrage. “That’s wild!” said one friend. “That’s ridiculous!” said another. Guess which camp I belong to.
It would have been the perfect wedding for two McD’s aficionados like ourselves. We could have pledged eternal devotion to each other, then vowed to keep traveling together in a quest to try all the localized options McD’s has to offer, like the McAloo Tikki in India or the McArabia in Morocco.
2. Marrying in Matching Clothes
Yesterday, my mom took me shopping for wedding stuff — dresses, shoes, accessories. But nothing really excited me until I saw two T-shirts — one in black that shouted I AM THE HOTTEST in white script, and the other in white with I AM THE COOLEST emblazoned across the chest.
All of a sudden I remembered the matching clothes that Chinese couples love to sport in public. I’ve always thought the trend was more quirky than corny, but have had a hard time convincing my fiance to try it. But on my wedding day… shouldn’t he bend to my wishes? I decided he should.
“These!” I exclaimed to my mom. “We can wear these when we register!”
“Wear what?” she asked, looking around and not seeing dresses or suits, and thus thoroughly confused.
“These matching T-shirts! They’re in white and black, perfect bride and groom colors!”
The withering look she gave me proved that I can’t bend her to my wishes. Fiance, your future mother-in-law saved you this time.
3. No Chinese Wedding Photos
One of the first wedding questions my friend and fellow cross-cultural blogger Jocelyn asked me was: “Are you going to do the wedding photos like in China?” Back then, my answer was a firm “no.”
“Official Chinese wedding photography” usually refers to the practice of posing for professional portraits in studios, not photos of the couple taken on the actual wedding day. My Chinese friends who have done it love the experience — they have so much fun trying on multiple costumes, contorting themselves into different poses for photos they will cherish many years down the road. Initially reluctant non-Chinese spouses seem to think it was worth the expense and effort when they see the final results. Some of my favorite East-West wedding photos are from:
- Kelly of Tales from Hebei (white female, Chinese male)
- Crystal, formerly of LoveLoveChina (Chinese female, white male)
- Jo of Life Behind the Wall (black female, Chinese male)
But as much as I love ogling others’ photos, I didn’t want to take any myself. The reasons weren’t very different from why I don’t want a traditional wedding, as mentioned above. And maybe also because I have an aversion to makeup (haven’t worn any since 2007).
My mom worried that I would regret it. Actually, she was absolutely certain I would regret not having official photos, Chinese style. I can always take them down the road, I said. “Don’t be crazy lah!” she replied. “This is to remember your youth. You have nice skin now. Why do you want to take wedding photos when you are old and wrinkly?”
Since she put it that way… I guess vanity wins. Photo studio and cute poses, here we come.
I’ve been reading your blog for a while but this is the first time I’ve commented. I love your style of writing and the dry humor behind it. After reading this post, I just had to to say that I agree as well in part. I’m getting married in June to a Chinese man. Sometimes I feel like I should care more about the wedding (supposed to be the happiest day of my life, right?) but to me, it’s just a hassle having to shop for accessories and plan the small details. I care more about the marriage than being the center of attention for a whole day. The only thing I think will be fun though is the wedding photo shoot. I love photo shoots and to do one dressed in traditional Chinese wedding clothes sounds awesome! I do however draw the line at super-cute poses. None of that “My arm is half a heart and yours is half a heart and when our hands touch we will be one whole heart” stuff. Yeah…none of that. Congratulations on the engagement and I hope you find some enjoyable parts to planning the wedding.
My mom gave me some good advice when I told her I didn’t care about certain details of the wedding (which I guess I shouldn’t have said so bluntly….sometimes our parents care more about days like these than we do). She told me, “Then spend more money on things you care about, and less money on things you don’t care about.”
Hi! Speaking of China introduced me to your blog last summer, and I love your style of writing too. I’ve been aware that you’re another overseas Chinese female blogger in China who’s preparing to get married, and I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who’s la-dee-da-whatever sometimes about the wedding.
One of my friends actually photoshopped my fiance and I into a Chinese wedding photo, just to give us an idea of what we’d look like. It made me laugh. I must say I’m starting to look forward to having a photo shoot.
Great advice from your mom! Much more balanced than “Spend all your wedding funds on what you care about, and nothing on what you don’t care about,” which is how I’ve been wanting to do it.
Congrats to you too, and good luck!
You know, the photo shoot thing sounds kind of cool, actually. :”>
As to “spend all your wedding funds on what you care about and nothing on things you don’t” you might well enjoy this story:
My mother’s mother’s good frugal German mother said to her daughter in the late forties “Well Juanita (yeah, she was rebellious and gave her daughter a non-German middle name), we can pay for a wedding (with your scuzzy Slovac boyfriend that I don’t like, but who makes you happy), or we can buy you a nice piece of furniture.”
Grandma and Grandpa got married in pants in the company of their parents and the minister. And Grandma got a nice china cabinet, as I understand it. All the churchy types predicted “dire things” for a marriage without formal wedding. Nearly seventy years down the line they are still married and Grandpa is still putting love notes to his bride on the refrigerator. It’s insanely cute. I want that.
Hey Christine!
I loved this post and can definitely relate (even though I did nudge you about those wedding photos, he he). My in-laws actually shot down my idea of a dream wedding at home in the countryside, which had to do with face concerns for the family and also that it didn’t make sense for a son who had made it to the US (again, a face/status thing). But I still love what we ended up having, even if it was bordering on the sort of “big fat Chinese wedding” I never imagined having.
I can sympathize with you about not being comfortable being the center of attention and having a huge affair. Growing up, if I thought about my wedding, I always thought I would have a small, intimate celebration – little did I know I’d end up having not one, but TWO “big, fat Chinese” weddings, with 250 guests at each!
I do think it is important that you try your best to enjoy this process, though. In theory, it should only happen once in your life so you should try to have some fun. I know it is easy for me to say, since I didn’t have to deal so much with the parental pressures and expectations, but it might help to try to come up with a few things that you would like included in the day that are unique to you and your fiance and that are special to you two and focus on those, instead of so much on everything you DON’T want. It also might help to think of it as that your parents are so proud of you that they want to show off to as many people as possible?!
My husband and I planned much of our wedding(s) ourselves, with the help of friends (which also helped us to be able to get more of what we wanted), and I chose to focus on including our families in the ceremony and on having photographs taken with our families on the day of our wedding and fought tooth-and-nail for those things. I also tried to remember how happy I was that I did NOT have to worry about centerpieces or table linens or a menu or ceremony programs (things I could care less about) like I would have had to do in Canada.
In the end, as Michelle said above, the wedding is only one day, but your marriage will last a lifetime. Also, speaking from experience, the wedding day flies by so quickly and much of it is such a blur that you will only remember bits and pieces anyway!
Lastly, some advice for the photos: I was hesitant about the photos at first too, since I had seen so many where friends were photoshopped and made up beyond recognition, but in the end, I figured it would be the only time in my life when I got to be a ‘supermodel’, so I got excited for that. Check out lots of shops, their backdrops, their sample pictures, and talk to them and arrange for what you want (if you don’t want ‘cutesy’ then let them know that) before you sign a contract with one. You should be able to find places that offer some more casual outfits – I’ve seen several friends’ albums and many of them have at least one set of pictures in the matching/coordinating T-shirt and jeans look. And if need be, be a bridezilla when you go there – one of the reasons I love our pictures so much is that I didn’t allow them to tell me what to wear, or what my husband should wear, and didn’t always do the poses they wanted us to do (but even if you do, you don’t have to select those photos in the end if you don’t like them). If it had been up to them, I would have worn a mullet-style striped dress and my husband an awful white suit in one set of photos – I put my foot down and said no. With a vision of what you want, and a bit of control, you’ll be fine!
Weddings are very stressful events, even if you are only a bystander. But for the sake of all those friends and relatives coming, it is nice to respect tradition. Plus IMO it seems to cement the marriage and make it seem real. That of course does not guarantee the marriage will be a success, but it does tend to increase its chances. Marriages based on just a court certificate and no honeymoon are very often doomed to failure. So have a big bash and an expensive honeymoon and start off on the right foot.
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Dude….I’m officially registered. Anyway, I wish I could have the kind of simple wedding you wanted ：D. However, I think you might have fun taking wedding pictures and don’t forget to show me if you did.
Oh, registered to my BLOG. Almost had a heart attack, I thought you meant you got married! That would have been sudden!