Green Orchid Events has rolled out a new service for Chinese weddings and Chinese tea ceremonies!
Chinese Weddings: Tea Ceremony
Photo by Dana Grant Photography
In honor of Chinese New Year (it's a two week celebration that started this Monday, January 26th), I'll be blogging about a few traditions that take place during Chinese weddings for the next week.
Since I love tea, I thought I'd start with the traditional tea ceremony.
The tea ceremony is performed to show respect for the couple's families. To summarize, hot tea filled with lotus seeds and dates to symbolize fertility is served to family members during a tea ceremony. The acceptance and drinking of the tea symbolizes the acceptance into the family. The older relatives are served first and addressed by their formal titles and then the couple works their way down from the oldest to the youngest relative. Lucky red envelopes filled with money or gold jewelry would then be given to the couple from any older relatives.
Traditionally, the bride serves her parents prior to the wedding ceremony. After the wedding ceremony, the couple usually serves his parents in a formal tea ceremony.
On a side note, my brother in law is in villa services at the Encore at Wynn Las Vegas and is well versed in how to service a Chinese Tea Ceremony. He is available for hire for Chinese weddings for anyone who is interested!
To learn more about the Chinese tea ceremony and other wedding traditions, check out this special site dedicated to Chinese weddings created by The Knot.
Happy planning!
