Picture Credits: Here
In my earlier post, I talk how choosing the date is a huge ordeal for Chinese Weddings--in this post, I will be sharing my personal experiences of the process I had to go through in order to finalize my date.
I got engaged in August 2013, but I didn't "finalize" my wedding date until probably February 2014. As I had no idea when I would be getting married, I didn't think it made sense to start looking at venues since I wouldn't even know if the venue would have the date I needed available.
In the Chinese culture, people normally try to get married on the "best" date per the lunar calendar, but if the individual isn't as superstitious, they normally just make sure the date they plan to get married on isn't a notorious "bad" wedding date per the lunar calendar. There's something called a "Tong Sing"which basically is the lunar calendar with indications on which dates are good/bad for what activities (yes--this DOES exist).
In addition to this, other restrictions include:
- Bride's birthday - the wedding should not be in the same month as the bride's birthday--based on the lunar calendar that is.
- Bride's family's birthday - As if just limiting the date to months outside of the bride's birthday month wasn't enough, you also shouldn't have the wedding during the same month as any of her direct relative's birthdays (also per lunar calendar). The reasoning for bother this and the above reason is because in the Chinese culture, marriages signify the bride leaving her family to join another. As such, it's not as big of a celebration for the bride's family since they're losing a family member. Typically, especially back then, the groom's family would have to cover the costs of the whole wedding (another difference compared to American weddings that i totally forgot about for my last post!) and also shower the bride's family with gifts and money so it's almost like they're "buying" a new daughter.
- Summer months - summer months are bad for weddings purely because that's when the "gates of hell" open up and ghosts/spirits roam free. You don't want to get married when that happens...apparently.
