Yesterday I got invited to a wedding of one of my Chinese co-workers at Web. She gave me the invitation along with a cute little box stuffed with Hershey's kisses, preserved eggs and some Ferrero Rocher truffles. YUM!
As I am currently working on how to organize and write my own wedding invitation, receiving a Chinese one was particularly interesting. There are a few obvious differences. The invitation was pretty cutesy and casual and they simply filled in my name with a pen - it kind of reminds me of a Valentine card that I would send in elementary school. The invitation itself is semi-bilingual - selected parts are in Chinese while other words are in English. The wedding is in one month which isn't a lot of notice for me, but seems to be fine for the rest of the Chinese co-workers (apparently the Save The Date phenomenon hasn't hit China yet). The main difference, of course, is that the adorable invitation came with a box loaded with goodies - everyone got one! My colleagues told me that Chinese brides and grooms are starting to do this to try and encourage the guests to give them more hongbao (red envelopes filled with money - the traditional present) at the wedding. I should point out that chocolate is expensive here - particularly foreign brands. Needless to say, everyone was impressed (including me) by the whole invitation ensemble.
According to the other staff members, an appropriate amount of money for me to give the newlyweds is 300 RMB or about $50 - a significant chunk of change in Changzhou. In China, the tradition is that the money from the guests pays for the wedding with some left over for the new couple. Actually, the more people I talk to people about this the more complicated scheme it becomes. More and more of my adult students say that the wedding is kind of like a giant lending institution. Many couples write down exactly what they receive from each family and when it comes time for that family to have a wedding they give back the same amount. Money isn't a sensitive topic here and it doesn't seem to make anybody uncomfortable (i.e. when the students ask me how much I make or about the price of anything I'm using or wearing the only person who feels strange is me).
In any case, I can't wait to go to the actual wedding- it should be fun and super interesting! Now back to writing my own invitation . . . I'm sad to say that it probably isn't going to come with a cute box full of candy though!
Nice invitation card. Most of the wedding invitations are not designed with the musical theme, for my opinion an invitation with the musical theme workout very gracefully.