As usual, a chinese-tradition wedding is always hectic but excited. I am not commenting this based on what I have experienced, but based on what I have observed recently. My uncle and aunty hosted their wedding ceremony in their 10 years anniversary (I think they have not officially gone through a wedding ceremony before). Their wedding ceremony involve a more traditional and typical chinese wedding style. This means they have to go through tea pouring sessions etc.


Caption: family tree (mom's relatives)

1. first row from left: Samantha and her sister (my cousin sister / aunty catherine's daughters), karen and Adam (my 2 cousin siblings / uncle and aunty's kids), my grandma, my grandpa, my aunt's dad and her mom.
2. second row from the left: My aunt's sister, my mom, aunt catherine, aunt christy, uncle and his wife, a long lost relative (grandma's relative), aunty christy's daughter, eldest aunty.
3. third row from the left: my sister, myself, my dad, aunty catherine's husband, the two cousin brothers (eldest aunty's son), balerie and her brother (aunt christy's daughter and son)

I have been reducing the number of images found on the camera, from approximately 350images to 80. However, making this post is relatively difficult since I have to resize the images on the template and uploading it on blog would consume plenty of time :S Please click once on every image to view the image in a larger size.


Caption: uncle going to pickup the bride

The story begun like this.

It should be approximately 10:00 AM when my uncle's cousin brother drove him to pick up my aunt. Time is an important aspect for Chinese, and this should be applied to every possible perspective in a marriage such as the time to pick up the bride, time for prayer, time for tea-pouring sessions etc. Upon reaching, he was not allowed to get down from his car until someone (a younger guy I assume) open the door for him. For some reasons, my uncle has to pay this person a red envelope (we called that as Ang Pao in Chinese).


Caption: before getting into the house

If you see clearly, there were few people blocking his way into the house. Well, for this reason, he has to encourage these people to open the door with, again, red envelope (of course the envelop would contain some money). Then, my uncle went into the house, and we started taking photographs.


Caption: meeting my aunt's relatives

This is the first time meeting my aunt's relatives, quite a number of them, but definitely will not outnumber my uncles's relatives. We went to the second floor to meet the bride. According to my uncle, my aunty's sister is a make-up artist. I wonder how my aunt would looks after makeup.


Caption: meeting the bride and my cousins

OMG! Two total different person in term of look (before and after make up)! I am not saying my aunt don't look pretty 'before' the make up, but she definitely look better in the pictures. Based on my aunt's facial expression, I think it is visible that she is feeling extremely happy on that day. My aunt's sister on the other hand is an extremely shy person. She left the room immediately as soon as I positioned the camera at her. Lol.


Caption: meeting my aunt's mother

Suddenly, someone asked us to get ready with the tea-pouring session. Oh, my aunt's mom just finish setting a nice hair in the salon. I believe her intention was to make herself look prettier since she know there will be many camera-mens around during that time :O Anyway, everyone is getting ready with the tea-pouring session.



Caption: tea-pouring ceremony for higher position family members

I think this is the most exciting moment for both my aunt's parents, and my grandparents since its an extremely important session in the chinese wedding culture. Okay, here is how tea-pouring session works. First, both my uncle and aunt would have to serve the tea for my aunt's relatives at higher position (i.e. parents, then elder uncles / aunties, followed by elder siblings). First, they started with my aunt's parents, then their aunty, followed by my aunt's elder brother and sister-in-law (the guy in pink coloured shirt) and finally their elder cousin brother (the guy in white coloured shirt, I think). After the relatives drink that cup of tea, they have to give 'something' to my aunt and uncle. I think the parents gave their daughter a golden necklace. Her sister-in-law gave her a golden bracelet. The rest gave her a red envelope that contained some money in it.



Caption: tea-pouring ceremony for lower position family members

Then, the lower position family members served them with tea. My aunt's brother (the guy in the yellow coloured shirt) received a red envelope from both my uncle and aunt, followed by my aunt's sister, and other relatives' children. My aunt's sister looks young isn't it? Besides that, they are quite dissamilar in facial texture, or perhaps, we would call that as 'difficult to believe that is her sister' (my aunt would kill me if she read this, lol). here is something funny. My aunt's chinese name was pronounced as Goh Mei (in Chinese, it represents United States) whilst her sister's name was pronounced as Goh Ying (we pronounced that as England in Chinese if you read it backwards), lol. So cute.



Caption: taking photo in groups

We spend some time trying to capture some nice photographs in groups. Suddenly, my uncle looked at his watched. It was half past 12, which means we have to dash immediately to my uncle's house for the next tea ceremony over there. According to my aunt, they have read through some chinese books, stating that they have to start the tea ceremony at my grandparent's home before 1:00 PM. It is extremely, hectic, really.


Caption: at my grandparent's home

Initially, we thought we will be late due to the short traffic. Glad we managed to make it on time, phew! The moment I entered the home, I saw massive amount of people, preparing for the tea ceremony, I assume. I even met some long-lost relatives and cousins, or perhaps some who I have never ever met in my life. What a precious moment.


Caption: praying session

They started the tea ceremony by praying to their god and ancestors. This is a relatively important task for Chinese people as symbol of honour to them.


Caption: my aunt with weird but funny hand positions

I wonder why is she so happy after the prayer, lol. Not like she has not pray before (again, she will kill me if she read this section, lol) .



Caption: tea ceremony for my uncle's higher position relatives

Similar to the previous tea ceremony, except, this time, they are pouring tea for the male's relatives. The entire process is just similar. My grandma gave her daughter-in-law a golden bracelet. It looks heavy :O This shows how much she love her daughter-in-law :) On the other hand, my mom gave her a golden necklace, and wore it for her. The necklace fit her neck perfectly (she is wearing it all the time now). Other relatives gave her some red envelopes.

Okay, the 1-hour-plus tea ceremony finally ended. I have been sweating for few hours continuously on that day since the weather is extremely hot. Then, chit chatted with England (aunt's sister) about UK, lol. She is a pretty nice person to speak to :) Later, we left home.


Caption: the wedding dinner

We reached to the clubhouse for their wedding dinner at around 6:00 PM when everyone was already there. I saw my mom's siblings. Do they look similar in the image above? (from left) my youngest aunt, my grandma, my second-youngest aunt, and my mom. They all look extremely similar to me, lol.



Caption: taking photographs for relatives

Busy! Busy! Busy taking photographs and talking to everyone, lol. Suddenly, they turned off the lights. The time is showing me 8:20PM. Oh, time for food, lol. They served the first dish.


Caption: the first dish

I reluctantly ignore the first dish, and went to the main table (first table where you will see the bride and groom and their parents on that table) and captured some images. Next, I will just clutter all images in a bundle since I do not know most of the people over there on that night. All I did was to 'only' capture images from one table to another, and eat, and thats about it, lol.






Caption: photographs from most tables

I should have taken more pictures (but Liz has been doing the job for me) since I was busy eating at that time, lol.



Caption: the foods on that night

Delicious! I like the food pretty much.



Caption: wedding toast

This is probably the most exciting moment in a wedding dinner when all the relatives from the main (first) table were invited to the stage for the wedding toast. That is also the moment when you would see "at least" 5-6 camera-men snapping photographs simultaneously for at least 15 minutes when everyone shouted "Yum Xing" for three times.


Caption: before the dinner ends

I missed the wedding dinner pretty much, and my aunt's relatives since they were all very nice people. This is one of the most glamourous wedding dinner I have ever attended, not due to the food or environment, but the people over there, giving me an extremely comfortable feeling when speaking to.


Caption: Liz

Finally, my uncle and aunty wanted to warmly thank Liz and Roy for helping so much in phograph taking. As a complimentary gift for Liz, I have posted your 'beautiful' photo over here to let people know that you do attend the wedding dinner on that night, lol.

Congratulations to both my uncle and aunt for their wedding.