The traditional Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony is usually conducted in the morning when the groom goes to the bride’s house to bring her back to the in-law’s residence for the tea ceremony. Wuan and I did not go through that as it would have been too much hassle with me in Penang and her parent’s house in Ipoh. The other way is for the bride to be picked up from a service apartment somewhere in the vicinity of the groom’s residence. Instead, we opted to conduct the wedding tea ceremony at the restaurant just before the banquet.
The usual way to conduct the tea ceremony is to serve the parents first followed by uncles, aunts, siblings and finally cousins who are older than the bride and groom, in that order. I was advised that we do not have to do it that way as it would drag on for too long if we have to go by seniority. What we did was to serve tea to the relatives as they arrive.
The photographs in this wedding tea ceremony series are not in chronological order. I have rearranged them according to their seniority in the family. On my mother’s side of the family, brothers and cousins are addressed as “Ah Hia” which is “brother” in Hokkien and Teochew. The wives are addressed as “Ah Soh”. Cousin sisters are “Ah Ji” and their husbands “Ji Hu”.
Kah Che and Che Fu – Wuan’s sister and brother-in-law.
My paternal cousin.
Maternal cousin and wife.
Maternal cousin’s wife.
Maternal cousin and wife.
