Wedding Culture: Chinese Tea Ceremony

Happy Friday, folks. Oftentimes on Fridays we pick a topic that is dear to our heart and would provide a great means of discussion for our couples (check out Important Questions to Ask Before you Marry, Wedding Morning Mantra, and Gift Guides for the Bride to Be). Today we’re taking a peek into a prominent Chinese wedding tradition, the Chinese Tea Ceremony, as it can be incredible to be at the very least informed of different cultures and you could even implement touches of other worldly traditions to create a completely bespoke wedding for yourselves!

We consulted with photographer David of We Are Origami Photography for some background information. He says, “In the Chinese culture, the tea ceremony is a significant custom. It includes a formal introduction of the bride and groom and shows respect to their families. During a wedding, serving tea acts as respect and gratitude to their parents all for the years of love and care.

A tea ceremony also generally involves a set of games/challenges prepared by the bridesmaids for the groom and his groomsman to play. These are mostly fun + games and if they fail a challenge, a red pocket is generally required to go to the next stage. As a photographer, it’s one of those moment where there’s lots of laughter to be captured.

The ceremony plays such a big part of the Chinese culture and is very symbolic:
Tea is the symbol of purity, stability and fertile. The purity of tea represents the love is pure and noble; the stability of tea stands for faithful love; the fertile of tea represents the family will have many children.”

We love that. A way to honor and show respect for those very important people in your lives. Oftentimes we remind couples that your wedding day is yours completely, yes… but you must remember the scarifies made and support provided by your loved ones!

Today’s feature is incredibly serene, pensive, and we’re loving the simplicity of it all. Stylist extraordinaire Sandra Chau gave us some background of the inspiration behind this beauty here: “A quintessential tradition for every Chinese wedding, the Chinese tea ceremony is an age-old tradition that represents the formal introduction and marriage of the couple to their respective families and demonstrates respect to their families for all the years of love and care. So on the morning of her wedding, this lovely Bride dons a silk robe while getting ready to wed her love, sips tea and finds a quiet moment to read a letter that her mum wrote to her to send her off on her new beginning. She’s surrounded by delicate silk textures and pops of ruby tones symbolic of luck and prosperity that her new life with her love will bring.”