Unique Chinese wedding elements, pt. 3
My last two posts have highlighted some of my favourite moments at weddings with just what the title says – unique Chinese wedding elements. Part 1 was about a friend’s wedding with their aunts and uncles opening up the reception with a choreographed dance and Part 2 featured my cousin’s wedding at her lion dance performance. This Part 3 post, might possibly be the last in this mini series, and it is about a beautiful wedding I helped with recently.
This past September I had the pleasure of helping coordinate Karen and Billy’s wedding. Billy, being a fellow wedding photographer with a design background, included many intricate details into his wedding day to make it unique. It is always exciting to work with clients who have an artsy background! His wedding background also allowed him to pick some great vendors for me to work with.
The magical day started out with a ceremony at the lovely Graydon Hall. The picturesque background made for beautiful photos and the overcast sky was a photographer’s dream! The team at Graydon Hall was a pleasure to work with and it came together without a hitch, even with the possibility of rain in the forecast.
The wedding reception was held at King Edward Hotel, adorned with high ceilings and ornate crown moulding. The couple’s eye for detail could be seen in the selection of coloured table linens and alternating favours from DavidsTea.
What was memorable at this event was the impact the live band had on the evening. The Laura Lynn Band graced the presence of this wedding and she was a huge hit. They were entertaining and engaging, flexible to the changing schedule.
Before dancing was even scheduled, guests were up and enjoying the dance floor – a rare occasion at a Chinese wedding! A lively dance floor at a Chinese wedding is already rare enough, but dancing for the sake of dancing before the dance floor was even open?? A sign of a great band, no doubt. I was starting to worry how we would get people off the dance floor so we could move on to speeches!
What made it even more special was that they mixed in two traditional Chinese songs into their repertoire, gaining huge brownie points with the Chinese crowd. Looking at the band you would never know they had it in them&emdasha 5-piece Caucasian group. A table near me was full of older aunties was actually quite disruptive during speeches, talking amongst themselves and not paying attention. But once the band busted out the classic “Yue Liang Dai Biel Wo Di Shin”, otherwise known as “The Moon Represents My Heart”, they were engaged as ever twirling napkins in the air to show their enthusiasm.
Don’t take my word for it, take a listen on their website here.
Yes, they also have songs in Korean, Japanese and Opera in their repretoire! Kudos to the Laura Lynn Band for being so multi-faceted. Needless to say, it was a delight to be a part of this wedding. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on the new journey together!
See more photos from this gorgeous wedding in my gallery here.
Photos courtesy of award-winning Calculated Style Photography – www.calculatedstyle.com
Unique Chinese wedding elements, pt. 2
Many Chinese weddings come and go but not all are memorable. This series is all about the memorable and fun Chinese elements in a wedding. In my previous post I shared about an aunties and uncles’ choreographed dance routine to open up the evening (what a great idea!) and this week I share with you another great way to infuse some culture into your wedding.
This month I attended my cousin’s wedding. It had Chinese wedding written all over it – 350+ guests at the beautiful Le Jardin, catered by none other than the man known as “Jacky”. No joke, half of my clients’ weddings for 2012 are at Le Jardin catered by Jacky. This isn’t a bad thing, mind you, (I love them both!) it just happens to be the magical combination of the dream Chinese wedding!
I was expecting a rather typical Chinese wedding, but I was impressed by all the elements that came together. I bet it was a dream to help with this one; there were so many great things about the day – lovely decor, great music and DJ, a huge guestlist, great weather, nonstop entertainment and not to mention the dream team of Le Jardin and Jacky’s catering.
The one thing I enjoyed the most was the energy and cultural flair from the lion dancers. Early in the reception, we were graced by the beating drums of the traditional Chinese dance of the lion. Commonly seen at Chinese New Year and at the Mid-Autumn Festival, it symbolizes bringing luck and fortune, while warding away evil spirits. Fruit and red envelopes are hung from high poles, presenting an entertaining challenge for the lion to grab. Read more about the tradition of the lion dance on wikipedia. It has always been a highlight of mine to see lion dancers during the Chinese holidays and what a delight to see this tradition at Christine and Mike’s wedding. Congrats you two!
See more photos from this great wedding here.
Photos courtesy of Joee Wong – www.jwphotography.ca/
Unique Chinese wedding elements, pt. 1
I cannot count on my hands and feet how many Chinese weddings I have attended or planned. There have just been too many. I love my Chinese friends and clients, and I especially love my own heritage, but sometimes I wonder how much of a Chinese wedding is done out of tradition and how much is done because everyone else has done it and it seems like the right thing to do. Actually, that can be said of all weddings… Anyway, this series of posts will be about some of the more unique and fun elements that I have encountered at Chinese weddings. Enjoy!
This past summer I attended a wedding of a good friend of mine from high school. In fact, we actually went to daycare together, only to be reunited in high school (and the rest is history!). I had to turn down a couple whose wedding was the same day because this was one of those weddings I just had to attend. Some of you might remember the post I put up a while back about this really fanciful engagement party I attended. Well, this is the couple! And it was an equally enjoyable wedding. I should add that I am glad I was a guest, and not a guest plus coordinator because we all know my rant about that 
The outdoor ceremony was at Eaton Hall and the reception at West River. Tiffany and Chris had elements that you would find in most Chinese weddings including a change into an elegant Chinese dress and a traditional tea ceremony. But the one thing that was most memorable was how the reception started out. The bridal party entered as usual with a fun introduction and then suddenly the parents and relatives busted out their dance moves to “Kung Fu Fighting”, completed by head to toe Chinese outfits. It was a hit with everyone in the room and what a fun way to kick off the evening! I was so impressed that the parents came together for a dance routine like this (great choreography Vivian!). It was definitely a unique way to add some Chinese charm to a wedding. Congrats Tiff and Chris!
To see more beautiful photos from their wedding, click here.
Photos courtesy of Manuela Stefan – www.manuelastefan.com.
Event planning blunders: Sushi at cocktail hour
They say wedding/event planners are the worst guests because they criticize everything. I’ve gone to so many events and weddings where I shake my head at the rookie mistakes I see. So I thought I’d start sharing some of these things I see, in hopes that people learn from them. Here goes my first one!
I helped at a fundraiser recently that brought in a lot of high-calibre guests (many guests spent well over $1000 on silent auction items). Guests came dressed in high heels and rocked some blingin’ outfits. At cocktail hour they had an assortment of beers to taste, a delicious oyster bar and, to my disappointment, platters of takeout sushi.
I’m quite a fan of sushi, don’t get me wrong. I love salmon anything, enjoy pretty much any roll and will constantly crave having sushi for meals. In fact, the sushi served was delicious. But when it comes to an event, especially at cocktail hour, sushi is not a good option!
Upon arrival, guests filtered through registration, a room for silent auction items and had an option to venture out to the (freezing cold!) outdoor patio where the sushi was. They were the large circular platters that you can order from just about anywhere. Next to the platters were a pile of napkins and half a dozen takeout chopsticks in the wrapper.
About 150 high-end guests ventured to the one sushi table and were puzzled as to how to eat it.
…Do they pick it up with their fingers and shove it into their mouths?
…Do they take the chopsticks with them and eat it from their paper napkins?
…Do they just hover over the table and double dip with the same pair of chopsticks?
…And what do they do with the other things they were already carrying – the cup of beer or glass of wine in hand or purse?
Sushi is great at a sit-down restaurant where you can take your time to eat. You can pour your soy sauce and mix your wasabi in. You can pick up the pieces of sushi you want from the shared platter and place it on your plate before eating. You can order your own rolls so that you are the only one eating it. If you are skilled, you can also bite a piece of sushi in half (without it falling apart) so that you don’t have to have a mouth-full of it at a time.
When it comes to cocktails before an event, guests like to mingle and have a bite to eat. Guests usually arrive at cocktail hour ready to eat too. They don’t want to get their fingers too dirty and they should be able to eat the hors d’oeuvres with one hand, so their other hand can carry their drink. To eat the sushi from a platter from one table, guests end up hovering over the table and it is a bit of a scramble to eat it. When it is free-for-all like this, those who don’t wander out to the patio end up missing out and those who are really hungry will eat more than their share. Also not all guests will be able to use chopsticks well enough to pick up sushi and will use their fingers to pick the pieces up (classy!).
Not to mention, there is only one way to eat sushi in that kind of circumstance.. by stuffing the whole thing in your mouth. Flattering right?
There are a plethora of other appropriate finger foods that are easy to serve and eat at cocktail hour that I won’t go into detail here. But if you must serve sushi at cocktail hour, an appropriate way to serve it would be to include small plates and an option to use chopsticks and forks (and enough for all the guests so no one has to use fingers!). Make sure to include a few pairs of tongs so guests can use those to pick them up easily. An even better way to serve it would be with wait staff who pass out the hors d’oeuvres, allowing a steady pace of the food to come out throughout cocktail hour and serving them to all guests around the cocktail area.
Sushi is delicious and you can definitely serve it if you have done your part to make it easy for guests to eat it. But if you plan on buying take out and don’t have time to do any other preparation, you are better off buying other pastries and finger foods.
Hmmm, now I’m craving sushi…