Today I will share some more photos of wedding accessories. You can see my last year posting of photos of these wedding accessories in here.
This is a very traditional wedding costume for the bride and is known as the Dragon and Phoenix Bridal Dress or "Kwa". I have one too and still in good condition. I will show you mine at another post (been 25 years since I last wear it...lol). By now if you have been following my blog, you should know that Chinese love Red. Red represent Good Luck and evil is afraid of the colour Red.
According to Chinese tradition the dragon and phoenix represent the natural balance that exists between man and woman so the dragon and phoenix are always found on chinese wedding dress or cheongsum. Take note that the dragon must always be on top on the phoenix and not the other way round as the man is always seen as the head of the family. In royalty, dragon represents the emperor while the phoenix is his mate.
These are the stuffs (scissors, ruler, comb, red thread, mirror, etc) we need for the wedding mornings that is the combing of hair ritual. A "good luck" woman (a married woman who have lots of children and grandchildren) will comb the hair of the bride or bridegroom.
The below photo is the word double happiness in chinese. This Chinese character "Double Happiness" is a very important symbol in the Chinese culture. It conveys the idea that man and woman are meant to go through life together. Every person, in effect, has a soul mate in this world. You can read the story of the double happiness from source in here.
A modern wedding shop selling all accessories a wedding might need. Very convenient.
Can you find more double happiness in the below photo?
Oh I love these tea sets, they are so pretty and cute. They play a very important role.
The wedding couple will present tea to the parents and relatives in sequence of seniority. Those who receive the tea usually give the bride gifts such as jewellery or money wrapped in red envelope or hong bao.
It can be a very costly affair for wedding especially someone close to you is getting married. I have to give a jewellery piece to my nephew during the tea ceremony and at wedding dinner I need to give a hongbao (with money in red envelope) to my brother in law and sister as wedding gifts. The money can be in hundreds depending where the dinner is held, i.e. four or five stars hotels.
Each dinner table of 10 cost about $700 to $1000. Sometimes wedding couples can make profit out of wedding dinner...lol. The hongbao gifts can help covered the cost of the dinner.
A very chinese wedding bed and accessories on sale in the wedding shop. :) To know more about chinese weddings, you can read the source from here.
Please visit "That's my World" for other parts of the world.
I hope you all will not be bored by my long post today. :)
20 comments:
Do come back tomorrow if you want to view my posting of my very own "kwa" or dragon and phoenix bridal dress. It is a very beautiful piece of art. :)
always fascinated with chinese cultural items...excellent post/commentary about wedding rituals. thanks for sharing.
very beautiful because in a typical wedding here in the philippines, i rarely see red as a motiff unless they are chinese.
quite colorful ornaments and clothes. i always find Chinese weddings quite intricate and beautiful.
Alice: It looks like orange is the primary color in the weddings of your world.
Love this post Alice, there is a shop here, selling everything for Chinese weddings and I love the traditional things, not the modern stuff where everyone can find anywhere! The double happiness sign is my fav of all time, no - not wanting to marry for the 2nd time, just like the word and the meaning. I didnt manage to eat kolo mee though :( but I've had plenty of fresh seafood at KK, some clams and shells I have never seen before here.
Thanks all for your nice comments and glad you all enjoyed the post.
FG, red is very welcome in the chinese world. :) Oranges represent gold because of its colour.
M Kate, glad you enjoyed your trip in KK.
brilliant!
These Chinese items have always fascinated me. May be I can see a Chinese wedding in your blog. ;)
Oeps a chinese weddingdress, its sooooo beautiful, I like to go married again LOL
The stuffs about wedding is so nice and frendly RED , I love it:))
Great! That's very interesting! I knew that the colour red is the colour of happiness and so also for weddings, while in our regions in Europe the bride wears white as the colour of purity. White in China is the colour of mourning.
Anyway your wedding dresses are very beautiful! I love them! Thanks for showing. Have a great week.
Nver bored Alice, always so well presented. Loveky images and such contrast to wedding dresses here.
Hi Alice I too wore a Chinese-styled top when I married my non-Chinese husband. It was my version of the traditional kwa & it was yellow & gold. I always wear Chinese on special occasions so I do have a number of Chinese clothes including our qipao. Tailor made of course since I'm Chinese.
So interesting to see the wedding preparations of another culture.
love reading abt weddings and cultures..they are so colourful..by the way, I was married in November too :)
Xue, I used to have qipao but I dont fit into them anymore...lol. I think I need to get new quipao...hehehe.
Those are beautiful dresses.
Beautiful wedding dress, this is one of the reasons I enjoy my Tuesday trip around the world!
Very interesting info about Chinese weddings. The dress is beautiful. I didn't know about the meaning of the dragon and phoenix before. I love red, too. I didn't know the significance to the Chinese, tho. I just like it in all its shades.
This is so interesting. I have only been to one Chinese wedding and the bride did wear the traditional dress. I remember that I was surprised that she was in red until it was explained to me. I think wedding can be very expensive in many places...Michelle
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