Journal · Weddings
Keeping the tea ceremony, letting go of the rest
How to hold the parts of a Chinese wedding that mean something and quietly retire the parts that only fill a schedule.
The wedding we are planning for February 2027 started with a list. Not of what the couple wanted, but of everything a Chinese wedding in Singapore is expected to contain, written down so it could be looked at properly. The morning gatecrash and door games. The fetching of the bride. The tea ceremony with both families. The outfit changes. The march-in, twice. The yum seng. The dessert table. The second march-in. The send-off line.
Then we went through it together and asked one question of each: who is this for?
What stayed
The tea ceremony stayed, obviously. It is the only part of the day that is about the parents and grandparents rather than about the couple, and the only part where something is actually promised in front of the people it is promised to. We have given it a room of its own, with the light and the flowers the ballroom will have, so it is photographed as the heart of the day and not as the thing that happened before breakfast.
The door games stayed, cut to twenty minutes, with the groomsmen briefed by us rather than left to invent it at seven in the morning. The point of the games is that the friends are present and laughing before the formal day begins. That takes twenty minutes, not two hours.
The yum seng stayed, once.
What went
The second march-in, because the first one is the moment and the second is a costume change with an audience. The dessert table, because the hotel's dinner already has a dessert and the table exists mostly to be photographed empty at the start of the evening. The send-off line, replaced by the couple walking the room during the last course, which takes the same time and produces a conversation with every table instead of a handshake at the door.
One outfit change instead of three. A shorter dinner with eight courses that actually arrive on time, rather than ten that arrive at eleven.
The result
A morning that belongs to two families, an evening that belongs to two hundred people, and a run of show that fits on one page. Nothing in it is new. Everything in it is there because someone could say who it was for.
If you are planning something similar and want to talk it through, the enquiry page is the place. If you would rather see what the whole thing costs first, the price guide is honest about it.
Planning something of your own?
