Me and Fancina, my wonderful co-teacher, at a wedding banquet

So you want to learn about Taiwanese weddings? Take everything you know about American/western-style weddings and throw it in the crapper.  That’s the first step.  Aside from the fact that there is a bride, a groom lots of people there to watch said bride and groom, and mucho food, Taiwanese weddings have little in common with what I have always known as a wedding.  

Where to start….ok, well first of all, when you are invited to a wedding, you are not invited to a full day event of vows, food and dancing.  Its basically a 2-hour, 15-course meal.  (And to make this whole thing even better, there are two of these wedding ceremonies, one hosted by the bride’s family, one hosted by the groom’s family.) When you’re done eating, you leave.  There is no exchanging of vows, no priests, rabbis, monks, buddhas, yogis, or any other ceremonial figure.  All of the guests come in to a big banquet hall.  Upon arriving, they stop to sign in at the ‘guest-book station’ and you hand them your wedding gift.  Apparently newlyweds here don’t mess around with toasters and dishes and vacuums.  Oh no.  They only get money.  The money has to come in a red envelope and it has to be an even number EXCEPT no 4’s.  The Chinese word for 4 sounds like the word for ‘death’ and is thus considered bad luck.  (Shortly after learning this, I also noticed that no building has a 4th floor.  You always go to the 3rd floor to the 5th.  Except my apartment.  where I live on the 4th floor.  oh no.  bad luck will now probably ensue.)  When you give them your envelope and sign your name, the station ‘manager’ quickly opens your gift, counts your money and writes it down.  So there goes getting away cheap.  

Then you come in and sit at your assigned table, where a bottle of red wine (which NO ONE touched), guava, juice, orange juice, and oolong tea waited for you.  Right on schedule, the bride and groom come processing in, led by a young girl in formal attire playing a flute (this might be unique to my wedding experience and not true to all Taiwanese weddings).  

Bride (in her 2nd dress) and groom toasting individual tables

After about one course, the bride and groom leave so that the bride can change outfits.  I assumed it was so she didn’t dirty her nice white dress.  Wrong.  Apparently brides don’t buy wedding dresses here, they rent them.  Since they save money by renting, they then rent multiple dresses so they can basically play dress-up all night.  

Me posing with the lovely bride (3rd dress) and groom

The bride at my wedding changed 3 times, and I guess she has 3 OTHER outfits for the grooms’ banquet.  There was a white dress, a canary yellow dress, and a bright teal dress.  These dresses are also used for weeks before the ‘wedding’.  The newlyweds go around to different scenic locations and take pictures all dressed up.  The end result kind of looks like senior (high school) pictures and all of the guests get a wallet-sized picture on their way out.  

And now what I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for…the banquet:

WARNING: if you dislike or are allergic to fish, don’t plan on eating anything at a Taiwanese wedding.

1st course: raw fish, scallops, duck something

2nd course: soup with fish? mushrooms? bean sprouts. maybe some squid? and other mushy slimy things. In fish broth.

3rd course: crab with rice noodles in a chunky garlic sauce

4th course: large fish. fresh out of the ocean. NOTHING missing. eyes, mouth, everything

5th course: seafood fried rice complete with little shrimpies and mushrooms. Garnished with whole crabs

6th course: shrimp in an M² sauce (mango + mayo)

7th course: fresh fruit, elegantly displayed

8th course: something like orange chicken, but take out the chicken, put in some fatty pork and some bones. Still pretty good though, considering

9th course: chicken soup. quite literally

10th course: some seafood thing. part of a squid/octopus maybe?

11th course: ice cream wrapped in mochi (glutinous rice pounded into paste)

12th course: And finally what meal would be complete without fishball soup? (it is supposed to symbolize the end of a good meal)

 Just to make this clear, all of these dishes were for the table, and not for each individual person.  I don’t think I could have handled an entire plate of mango/mayo shrimp by myself.

So there we are.  A Taiwanese wedding.  No ceremony.  No dancing.  No drunk relatives.  Just lots of food and lots of rented dresses.  Still totally worth it and I will definitely go to another one, which may turn out to be quite possible since you can invite almost anyone to a wedding if you know them through some channel or another.  Looking forward to it!

PLEASE NOTE:  These are my superficial views on the wedding that I witnessed.  I am not suggesting that there is no ceremony or additional traditional/legal practices.  I just want to explain what one can expect if ever invited to a Taiwanese wedding.