Happily Ever After

This weekend I attended one wedding and one engagement party in my hometown. They're all for my cousins, one is the son of my uncle from my father; the other is the son of my big aunt from my mother. Although it's modern times now, the weddings were still traditional types. Getting married in Taiwan needs to go through many rituals and expenses yet. Actually, it will cost a fortune.

Even though men in Taiwan no longer have to present large sums of money to their future wives' parents for giving the thanks, they have to pay money for the wedding. After proposal to his girlfriend, the man needs to ask his girlfriend's parents for permission to marry her. Then, the couple needs to prepare their engagement party first. In Taiwan, it's usually held in bride's hometown as a wedding, which will only invite the relatives and friends of the bride and only a few families of the groom. They need to take the wedding photographs as a very big photo album, which will spend them a lot of money that will including the wedding dresses, makeup and bouquet they need on the engagement party and the wedding day. Also they need to book a good restaurant after checking the number of the guests, which is a hard problem for the couple. In Taiwan, you need to decorate the restaurant by yourself, or you need to spend money to ask someone to help you out. Besides these, the couple has to buy wedding cookies for the bride's guests which usually go with the wedding invitation cards. This is another expense of the wedding.

At the engagement party in the bride’s home, all the elders of broom’s family has to take a seat in the bride's living room for the bride to treat each other a glass of tea which is the good beginning to greet the bride. Everyone needs to dry the glass of tea before the bride to get them back, and put a big red envelope in the glass. It's the sign for welcome the bride to become their family member. After that, the couple needs to put on each other's ring. In addition, their mothers also need to put a golden necklace on each other for giving the biggest blessings. This is main point of the engagement. Without this ritual, they're not really got married in traditional culture. And the engagement party will be held after the main point. It will be a great treat to give thanks everyone's greetings & helps. Before the banquet, each guest has to give the couple cash-filled red envelopes helps pay for the food.

The wedding usually will be held in groom's hometown, but will be easier than the engagement party. Usually having the wedding banquet for the guests and some will invite friends to say something for the couple. That is the sweetest time of the wedding I think. Even after all the rituals, the newlyweds will still face the expenses of a honeymoon. Not everyone could pay for all these bills at one time, it might need several years. Maybe it's because of these big expenses for a wedding; couples must try their best to keep the happiness in the marriage life ever after for there's no one could offer another wedding. By the way, there will be many arguments happened during the wedding planning. If you go through them all successfully, it really means you can have each other in your life forever…