How to Add a Slice of Your Asian Heritage to Your Wedding
By: Chris Simeral
If you’d like to add a slice of your heritage to your wedding ceremony, you’re not alone. Millions of couples are embracing their ancestry and choosing to incorporate some of the best traditions from around the world in their ceremonies here at home. Here are some of the most interesting wedding traditions you might find if you attended a wedding in an Asian country. If you or your family are from one of these countries, why not try adding some phrases from your ancestor’s native tongue in your wedding vows for a truly memorable touch!
Although Western cultures tend to lump Far Eastern cultures together in one word, each country has very different wedding customs. For instance, the traditional color for a wedding gown in China is red, which is a lucky color. Gowns can be quite ornate, featuring gold filigree with phoenix and other mythological creatures embroidered on it. As the bride arrives at the church, guests to the wedding shoot off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits. During the ceremony, the couple sips tea from two cups joined with a red string to symbolize their vows, and then cross arms and drink again to symbolize their completed union.
Japanese brides wear a pure white kimono, with the color representing both the death of the bride’s old life with her family and the birth of her new life as a married woman. The country has a Buddhist culture, and the ceremony includes many aspects of that culture, including invoking the various elemental gods to bless the union. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the groom sips from each of three cups of sake three times, handing each one to his new wife so she may do the same. The couple then passes the cups to the family.
In Korea, the bride wears a lime green wedding dress embroidered with flowers and butterflies. She wears a gem studded black cap, and white socks with red circles to ward off evil spirits who may dog her feet at the ceremony. During the wedding, the bridegroom will give the mother of the bride a wooden goose symbolizing his fidelity to her daughter. The animal is used because the goose mates for life. During the ceremony, the bride and groom sip a special wedding wine, “jung jong,” poured from a gourd made by the bride’s mother. This drink is the formalization of the wedding vows.
Chris Simeral is the creator of The Ultimate Wedding Vow Toolkit, the wedding-coordinator-approved home-study course for couples personalizing or renewing their wedding vows. Sign up for the free wedding vow mini-course at http://www.weddingvowtoolkit.com.