OUR WEDDING IN MALAYSIA

Hello! * Bows*

Incase you didn’t know I’m half Chinese. My mom is Cantonese and her grandparents migrated from China to Penang, Malaysia. She grew up in Penang and met my dad when he went to Seminary there. So though I look mostly brown, I’m pretty Chinese on the inside. I grew up eating mostly noodles and dim sum for breakfast and can even speak Mandarin fluently thanks to my mom making me go to Chinese school for 8 years.

Since we already had a formal wedding in the U.S, Meg and I thought it would be cool to have a Chinese wedding with my family in Malaysia. I say that very loosly because we didn’t incorporate any burning of incense, or hire a fortune teller to pick the right date for our wedding, or pray to any Buddhist gods. Instead we picked out the some of the fun parts like having a tea ceremony to honor our elders, dressing in red, making Meg look like Mulan, and throwing a feast - the kind that you invite your whole town to. I kid you not, my kindergarten teachers, dentists, family doctors, even my principal made the invite list… and you better believe they showed up.

This tea set was used in all the weddings from my mother’s side of the family.

Meg and I would serve tea to all who were older than us. We were in a bowing position as folks took turns to be served.

Those that were younger than us then took their turn to serve us tea instead.

My beautiful Mulan bride :)

After the tea ceremony, we then changed into our ‘western’ attire for the celebration dinner. The bride usually changes into 4 -6 outfits that night, but they took it easy on Meg and said she only had to wear this one white dress.

It was so special to be able to celebrate our marriage by honoring some family traditions surrounded by so many of my family and friends. I’d advise anyone who can spilt their wedding into two massive parties to do it.

What was a unique tradition you incorporated into your wedding day? Leave a comment and tell us all about it!