Leo's wedding

Our great driver, Leo, got married this past weekend and it was so wonderful to be invited and able to attend the festivities.  Getting married here is quite different than in the US but does have some similarities.  For instance, Leo and Eva actually were officially married last year on 10.10.10 since that is a "lucky" day.  They went to the office where you get married, filled out the paperwork, showed their ID and they walked out married.  I would guess it's similar to going to the courthouse to get married in the States but there was no ceremony at all, it's literally a government office that you walk into single and walk out with a piece of paper showing you are married.  They don't begin living together at that point they wait until the wedding but they are "officially" married.

Then you begin to save and plan for the actual wedding - that took place on June 11th.  The whole day is filled with traditional customs of things that the bride does and things the groom does and the day ends with a dinner party at a hotel or banquet hall.  Leo's was at a lovely hotel.  The room was decorated very similar to how we would decorate for a wedding.  There was a covered canopy that when the whole evening began Eva's father walked her out to it.  Leo then walked down the middle aisle to take her from her dad, and then they walked up the aisle with a flower girl throwing petals on them the whole way.  Leo then said lots of nice words to Eva (I assume they were nice - it was obviously all in Chinese and I could understand about every 5th word!)  John then got to give a speech/a toast to them.  As Leo's boss, we were honored guests at sat at the very head table next to the groom's table.  It was very neat.

Jellyfish

Then Eva left to change into another dress.  We all began eating a host of Chinese delicacies...and by we I mainly mean John, Lauren, Kate and I - Leah ate a lot of chocolates that were on the table! :)  To be fair, John and Lauren really feasted on things like lobster and crab and jelly fish and some kind of beef soup and a host of other things.  Kate and I ate chicken, some lobster and broccoli with bites of everything else tried.  Leah ate chocolates and some chicken and then a lot of watermelon!

Eva then came out in a new dress and took Leo to the stage and then said all kinds of nice things to him.  After that Leo brought Eva's parents to our table to toast us and say thank you for coming.  Later he brought his parents.  It was really fun to get to see their families and what their celebration looked like!  Eva and Leo and both sets of parents then went on stage.  Eva's father made a speech and then Leo and Eva went in front of her parents and bowed 3 times, then in front of his parents and bowed 3 times all while the MC was saying a vow of sorts.

Eva then went and changed again.  At this point, she finally got to eat some food.  They cut the cake and then went from table to table toasting and saying thank you to each table.  At that point, it was 9 o'clock and Kate was beginning to melt so we headed out.  It was a very fun and so fabulous to get to see a Chinese wedding!