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I Do x 2

It's often said that the marriage ceremony is not as much about the couple as it is about the guests. That's certainly true of marriages between cultures, like my own, as it seems that both "sides" of the joined family are keen to see what cultural cues the new couple adopt on their first official day together. Will it be a "western" wedding, or a "Chinese" one?

Leaving aside the foolishness of labelling all the many wedding traditions of the western world and all those of China under such labels, the possibility of my wife wearing a red wedding dress (and not traditional white) seemed to scandalise my grandmother, but no one else seemed too worried by it. We naively thought that once dress colour was dealt with it would prove to be the only hiccup, but once the story got around that we we'd answered grandma's concerns by featuring both a white and a red dress in the ceremony, it seemed that everyone had an opinion on which cross-cultural symbols were acceptable and which were not.

Every couple has to make their own choice on this, but for us the simplest and most fun solution was actually to have two weddings! In the end, we came to understand that while we were, of course, joining together for our own reasons, and that we didn't have to answer to anyone else but ourselves, when it came to the big party we wanted all of our guests to feel comfortable and have fun, no matter what their cultural background.

Not being actually possible legally to get married twice, we solved this little problem by calling our "western" ceremony the "wedding" and our "Chinese" ceremony the "reception". We could easily have reversed the labels, but everyone seemed comfortable with those ones. When you get right down to it, the central part of the western ceremony is the vows and the rings, and the central part of the Chinese ceremony is the big meal and the joyous carousing that follows. So we had both, and everyone was relaxed enough to have fun, which meant we were, and did, too.

For both events, we chose to book the high-cost items (like room rentals and catering) ourselves (and save the service fee) which meant we were able to enjoy several test meals, and see the inside of many wonderful spaces, which was all very romantic! To make sure the decorations, flowers, guest welcoming and gift services all went smoothly, we left those kinds of finicky things to the professionals, and were happy to pay a little extra for the peace of mind.

The two days themselves are a blur in my wife's memories, as they are in mine. That seems to be the universal experience of every couple no matter the culture! But those who were there said that they were impressed by how much both days focused on making sure the guests were comfortable, which of course meant that the guests were able to focus on us, and give their wholehearted blessings to the union, which is, after all, the most important element in any wedding that's done outside a registry office.

And having had it both ways, we can't imagine having done it any other way.