The Wedding Festivities

I was so excited to see my parents that I barely slept the night before the flight to Beijing. I didn't sleep on the flight at all. Howie and I were picked up at the airport by his friend's dad, Mr. Jia. We were then driven to the hotel. As we were hauling our bags out of the car my parents came out of the hotel. They had been up for hours and were sitting the in lobby reading. During hugs I introduced Howie and there were more hugs. Before meeting my parents Howie had asked me if he should hug my parents or shake their hands. I said hug my mom but my dad I'm not so sure. Turned out it didn't matter. As my dad said later, "A hug just felt like the right thing."

After settling in we headed out. I honestly can't remember what we did everyday after that but we did a lot in the little time we had in Beijing. If I remember right we were only there for 2 full days. During those days we did a lot of tourist stuff. We went to the Great Wall (JuYongGuan pass) where Howie and I put a padlock on a chain on the wall and threw the key over the wall, a little known tradition here to show never ending love.
We also went to Tian'anmen Square, Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, Olympic Village, and the Dali Lama Temple. We also had Peking Duck, it's quite tasty.

Here are the photos from Beijing. And one more album.

After going through Beijing we took the train (and introduced my parents to the Chinese queuing system) to Shenyang then a bus to Fushun where Howie's dad met us. The next couple days were spent touring Hada and meeting different family members. Howie also introduced me to his grandparents. We went to their grave where we lit cigarettes for them, poured Baijiu on the grave, and placing fruit near the gravestone. Some of Howie's friends from Dalian and Anshan came to town for the wedding as well.

You can see pictures from Hada here.

Now the day of the wedding... I woke up at 4:00 am to take a shower and wait for the hair/makeup girl to show up at about 5:00 am. It took nearly 2 hours for my hair and makeup to get done. A short while later the hotel room that I was staying at with my parents was filled with family and friends. I put on traditional Chinese clothes and sat on the bed to wait for Howie. He came shortly after I was all ready. He arrived on a horse followed by the sedan chair that I was going to ride in to Howie's house. When he got to the room ChungAi (Howie's best friend's girlfriend/my Maid of Honor) let Howie in after he knocked for what seemed forever. He kept knocking on the door and no one was moving. I tried to get up to open the door before I was told to sit down. Howie entered the room and we sat on the bed and started taking pictures. Most of the wedding day was posed for the cameramen. We took pictures on the bed, with my parents, Howie serving coffee to my parents, Howie and I drinking coffee together, Howie putting my shoes on for me, Howie and I bowing to each other and so on.

After all these pictures were taken and the cameramen were satisfied I was veiled and led down 3 flights of stairs to my sedan chair. Once there more pictures were taken. Then we were off. I was carried behind Howie, who was riding a horse. I knew we were close to the house when I heard hundreds of firecrackers and big boom fireworks going off. When we arrived I was helped out of the chair and led to a small platform. I stood on this, still veiled, and was fed a piece of candy by Howie's mother. I then fed a piece of candy to her. Then she gave me a large red envelope of money. I was now allowed to enter their house as their new daughter. But on the way I had to step over a stove of hot coals. Once in the house I sat on their bed where his mother gave me a cup of Pepsi and asked me if it was sweet. I had to respond with, "Yes, it's sweet." I still don't know why. Then I was unveiled. We took a bunch of family pictures before I was told to change to my white wedding gown.

Once in the white gown with red heels, Howie and I fed each other noodles and poached eggs. We were then ushered out the front door to the car that was waiting to take us to the restaurant. On the way, there were more fireworks and lots of confetti cannons. We rode in the car to the restaurant after we drove around the tiny town a bit. Once at the restaurant I had to scoot out of the car and take more pictures with the car. (Pretty cheesy if you ask me.) We then had more confetti cannons. When we stepped into the restaurant there were tons of people there and the floor was covered with sunflower seed shells. We were then ushered into the lobby of the hotel (it's one huge building built together). There we sat and talked to the announcer and waited for the appropriate time to go in to start the ceremony. (Howie told me that some of the old ladies would be looking at their watches to make sure we started at an auspicious time.)

When we were allowed to enter, Dad walked me for a short bit and gave me to Howie. Dad didn't hug me but he hugged Howie! lol. Howie's parents were introduced, my parents were introduced then Howie and I walked down the aisle to the stage while on both sides of us fireworks went off.

Once on stage we started the ceremony. There was a lot of talking that I didn't understand. At one point I was asked to say hello to everyone. Howie expected me to say it in Chinese but at this point I couldn't remember how to say even one word in Chinese. So I said, "Hello" in English but the microphone stayed in front of my face to I added, "Everybody." That is what I was told to say so I said it. I feel dumb now thinking of that! During the ceremony we lit the unity candle, had a prayer, Dad gave a blessing, and Howie's dad spoke. The mayor also spoke a bit which supposedly makes the wedding official. We cut a cake and poured wine into a wine glass tower. We were then told to drink from these glasses. (The night before we checked out the dining hall to make sure everything was okay where I noticed the glasses were disgusting and made sure that we weren't going to have to drink out of them. Howie said we wouldn't be drinking from them. I guess that plan was changed without us knowing until we had to drink from these disgusting glasses.) When the ceremony was done Howie and I walked out (or he practically carried me out because my feet hurt so bad from the shoes I was wearing).

I then changed into my third and final dress. Another red dress but not so traditional. We then returned to the dining hall where we greeted the guests that had remained there (originally there were 500 guests, by the time we came back only about 100 remained). I then began my bridely duty of lighting cigarettes for the men, pinning flowers in the old women's hair, and unwrapping candy and feeding it to other women and some men. Finally, I thought it was done when we got to the last table and had taken a few more photos with random people inside and out.

I was wrong again. We still had staged photos to take with just the parents. We went to our own private room to have lunch where I was given another red envelope of money, lit cigarettes for Howie's parents, Howie light cigarettes for mine, and I fed a fish eye to Howie's mother. After a few more shots of drinking and toasting, we were done. Actually done. The cameramen left, the horrible announcer left and we could eat. Of course we had some other family members come in to drink with us but it was much more laid back than earlier.

When it was all said and done I went to my parents' room to take a shower and get all the make up and hairspray off of me, not to mention all the horrible confetti that was stuck to me and in my hair.

I spent the afternoon watching TV with my mom while Dad took a nap and Howie spent time with his friends. That evening his friends, my parents, Howie and I, and Howie's dad went to dinner. After the dinner Howie's friends and he and I went to KTV. We finally went to Howie's parents' to sleep.

The day started at 4:00 am and didn't finish until about 2:00 am.

You can see all the pictures of the ceremony here.
Here.
Here.
And here.

After the wedding festivities, my parents came to Dalian where we showed them what we could while they were here. I'm afraid it wasn't a very relaxing visit for them.

Here are the photos from Dalian.