Choosing a Date

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.

My mom had a very superstitious friend in China who loves researching this kind of stuff, so my mom decided to just get her to help us choose a good date. However, her friend was on vacation, so we didn't hear back from her until probably around November. Since 2014 was just coming up and we weren't planning to get married until 2015, my mom's friend had a lot of trouble finding the 2015 version of the Tong Sing. As a result, she consulted other "experts" to help determine which dates would work. Unfortunately, none of the dates she returned with worked well for us because they were all during a time when the weather would be too cold. In addition to that, she was telling us that 2014 is the best month to get married so we should totally get married in 2014 if possible--especially since 2015 is actually a pretty bad year to get married overall.

I joked to my mom that H & I should totally just get hitched this year and have the reception next year. My mom thought for a second before actually concurring that this would work. Immediately I asked if our anniversary would be a good date to get engaged. Since my mom had the 2014 Tong Sing available, she checked and confirmed that not only is it NOT a bad day for marriage, but it's actually one of the best days during 2014 to get married! In addition to that, since we would be getting hitched on a good date this year, it wouldn't matter which date we're having a reception next year -- just need to make sure it's not a "bad" day for celebrations. This also makes our reception date more flexible as our venue pick wouldn't have to be as contingent on whether our date would work for them.

The whole process when it comes to choosing a date was the longest and most stressful process I've been through. It created so much tension between my mother and I because we kept confusing each other by switching back and forth between the solar calendar and the lunar calendar and because she didn't understand the importance of having the date available before we started looking at venues since American venues had to be booked at least a year in advance if you want to make sure your dream venue is still available. However, I must admit that explaining and talking about this topic at work led to great conversations and it also made me more aware of Chinese traditions and customs.

Hope all of the Chinese brides out there have much better luck with this process than I've had & Good Luck!