The past three days went by in a blur of activities. In a nutshell, the wedding was great and was split into two days. Kirsten, my new cousin-in-law is a true blue Aussie blonde and the wedding rituals was a mix of cultures and traditions.

On the first day, Saturday, we did the traditional Chinese wedding practice of getting the bride from her maiden home to go to the groom’s parents’ house for the tea ceremony.

The maiden home is this case was actually Shane and Kirsten’s apartment – her parents home is a 2-hour drive away in country NSW. This part of the day involved the bridal party posing questions about the relationship and tasks for the groomsmen and friends to perform to get through from the front door of the house to the room in the house where the bride would be. If the groom’s party cannot answer any of the questions, or not willing to do some of the tasks (such as eating garlic, or raw pieces of onions), the groom has to fork out money in the form of red packets.

Getting the bride ritual, Chinese wedding

For us, there were three “gates” – the front of the apartment building, outside the window of the apartment, and the door to the apartment. This took us about half and hour or so, and about 13 red packets.

Once that was done, close friends and relatives of Kirsten all got into their cars and we headed back to my uncle’s house. Here we did the tea ceremony – the bride and groom presented tea to the family elders and cousins/siblings who are older, and in return they get jewelery or money. Younger siblings and cousins do the opposite, and they get money from the bride and groom.

Chinese wedding tea ceremony

This took up about an hour or so and all of us then adjourned to the backyard for lunch. The first day thus ended on a very relaxed note and I liked that it was split into two days.

I will follow up with more photos and possibly a video.