Lots of folks have been asking me about the Chinese Tea Ceremony and its significance, and I've been totally happy to answer any and all questions thus associated. I briefly considered adding a link to some website about this tradition when I had a thought: no two families do this quite the same way. As cultural groups are not internally homogenous, neither is the observation of their traditions. So here's a little blog-style post about how we'll be doing it.

The tea ceremony is a component of a Chinese wedding, but is wholly separate to the actual wedding ceremony itself. That is, the wedding is about uniting the bride and groom, where their relationship and formation of a new family takes centre stage. The tea ceremony is instead about each of their own families.

Traditionally, the ceremony is meant to cover two main things:

To honour and show respect to each of the families, particularly those more "senior" to the bride or groom; and
To welcome each of the newlyweds into the other's family as a daughter or son, acknowledging the change in the status of their relationships.

I put "senior" in quotes because seniority is a big deal in Chinese culture; certain individuals are to be offered respect first and foremost, dictated by their relationship to you, their age, and their gender. That we are having our ceremony in Singapore is a non-traditional way to acknowledge my grandmother's seniority, being the lone surviving grandparent between our families. That Blake's older sister is part of the ceremony while my younger sister is not is another example of how seniority works.

Depending on what kind of Chinese you are, there are plenty of variations between venues and service order, with the one constant being that, well, yes, there is tea involved. The newlyweds are to pour and serve tea to their families, starting with one side of the family (in order of seniority) and then across to the other side of the family. Which family goes first is a matter of cultural variation; some families serve the bride's family first to signify her departure from her family, while others serve the groom's family first because the groom's family traditionally pays for the wedding.

(Hence the impasse in which we found ourselves, where Blake's culture dictates that the bride's family pays for everything.)

The bride's "departure from her family" bit is to do with old-school Chinese culture, where the wedding ceremony usually starts with the groom coming to the bride's house and "taking" her away to get married. In stark comparison, in most Western weddings the bride is "given away" by her father. Both traditions totally stem from perverse patriarchal origins, but I'm finding that I have to balance smashing the patriarchy with not pissing off my parents or future in-laws.

We've decided to serve my family first and Blake's family second, as a deference to my grandmother's seniority and also the fact that I currently live in Perth.

Another variation is when the tea ceremony occurs. In our family (and the vast majority of Cantonese families, from what I understand), the tea ceremony traditionally takes place after the wedding, usually within a couple of days of the wedding itself; the newlyweds will pay a visit to one family's house and then the other family's house, to pour and serve tea separately. There are some Chinese cultural groups who do the tea ceremony before the wedding (usually the morning of), and some who do it during the wedding, usually just after the couple has been married.

We've decided to do the tea ceremony a week before our Perth (and legal) wedding, serving tea to both families one after the other on the same day at the same place. This hits a lot of notes for me, not least because it is important to me that Blake's family knows and acknowledges where I come from, at least in part. Often I feel that the ease of my adjustment to living to Perth is (unintentionally) taken for granted; I would like them to see my grandmother's house - one of the last remaining bastions of my upbringing that still holds meaning for me over my nomadic life.

That's not how most folks would do things, but eh, we're not most folks. As my parents like to tell me, some traditions are significant and meaningful, some of them are outdated and kind of dumb or done only for tradition's sake. The good news is that we get to choose which traditions fall into which category, because the creation of any new family means there's a new cultural variant on the board, which is kind of really super awesome.