It may vary from place to place but this is clear, the Chinese wedding was an important rite to the Chinese individuals, they had stages to go through before death and this was one among them. For you to have gone through the Chinese traditional wedding, it was crucial to go through the 8 steps, which included: proposal making, birthday matching, marriage divination, betrothal gifts presenting, wedding date fixing, dowry urging, bride being welcomed to the wedding and the wedding ceremony.
Proposal making would be done by the parents but it allowed romantic love from individuals as well. The birthday matching was where they could take the names of both the girl and boy to a sorcerer to check if they were compatible. If the Chinese astrology allowed them to be a couple then the next thing was the boy’s family to offer gift to the girl’s family, it included gold, silver, jewelries, cash, clothes and a special gilded silver coin written on it the word ‘Qiu’ meaning proposal. In return, the girl’s family could also send a coin with the word ‘Yun’ meaning agreed.
After the marriage was confirmed, the wedding would be organized. The sorcerer would be summoned to choose a wedding date which would bring the couple most luck. The boy’s family would go to the family to inform them of the wedding date and urge them to send the dowry. If the dowry would not be send on time, the wedding would be postponed. The girl’s family would prepare the dowry and send it on the agreed day. The dowry quality mattered most, because it was the one that dictated how the girl would be treated in the future husband’s home.
On the wedding, the bridegroom’s family was to welcome the bride to the wedding with a bridal sedan, then the ceremony would begin. It was a joyous day because of the firecracker explosion and entertainment. The wedding would end and the bride would go with the groom to their new home as a couple. They would perform formal bows, this was to gain approval from the ancestors, gods and divinities.
They would enter the bridal chamber and sit on the bed, then they threw embodying nuts and drunk from the nuptial cup. After all these, they would continue with the wedding feast, they would have fun till the end of night. Then the couple began a life together