Wedding Guide Asia

One of the BEST parts of any Chinese Wedding has to be the inaugural ‘Pick Up The Bride’ ceremony. If you’re the groom and you thought getting down on your knees (and praying for a ‘YES’) was the hardest part – guess again. When WGA contributor (and my best friend) Elaine Ho recently tied the knot, yours truly was given the task of putting together some very special ‘games’ for the groom & his boys.

What is the ‘Pick Up The Bride’ ceremony all about, you ask? Basically, it could be described as the final challenge for the groom before he ties the knot. Not only do groom & co. face some daunting tasks (think Fear Factor meets The Amazing Race), but he also has to ‘buy’ his way to the bride’s room – yes, it’s Ang Pow time, ladies!

Traditionally, these games should occur at the bride’s house. But since Elaine is from Kuching in East Malaysia, she decided to hold the games & tea ceremony at Level 7 of the KL Hilton.

Elaine was dressed in a traditional Kwa that she bought in Guang Zhou, China. The Kwa was handmade and took about a month to complete – zoom in and you’ll see why – intricate dragon & phoenix patterns galore! She spotted it in a shop, tried it on, and simply knew it was ‘the one’. I think she looks stunning :) And of course, Eddy was looking sharp as well! He had his traditional outfit made by a tailor in SS2. Unfortunately, he can’t recall the name…

The first task was a ‘wedding dance’ with ‘Cardboard Elaine’. Now, look closely and you’ll realise that we superimposed Elaine’s face onto the body of Miranda Kerr! Only the hottest bod for my best friend ;)

Firstly, all the Heng Tai had to put on red lipstick & kiss ‘Cardboard Elaine’ (polite ones avoided certain areas!), after which Eddy took her for a twirl…

The plan of attack. As you can see, we Chi Muis meant serious business and aptly named our program “The Amazing Elaine Race”!

Between tasks, we gave the boys a good ol’ wax to help them focus. The only problem and irony with this… Chinese guys are not very hairy!!! The only one who really suffered was Eddy’s friend from Scotland… Bet he wishes he wasn’t wearing that kilt ;)

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Say hello to Joy & Anderson’s wedding photos shot by WGA vendor Fifoto Photography. This has to be one of the most entertaining weddings we’ve had from Fifoto – just scroll down to see the fun photos of the groom and his men as they ‘pick up the bride’!

Here’s what Fiona from Fifoto had to say about the wedding:

After shooting their pre-wedding shots a year ago, we knew that their wedding was going to be one to remember! And we were right.

The Tai Kam Che was singing tunes from the BeeGees (in Cantonese, of course!) and the “Heng Tais” (groomsmen) cheered her on as backup singers during the tea ceremony. Just hilarious!!

To sum it up, I think “Purple Perfection” would be the words of the day – the 10 bridesmaids were dressed in matching purple dresses and the groomsmen (JasonBoy was the best man!) looked cute in their purple bow ties.  The Heng tais were very sporting (in fact, overly sporting!) and completed all tasks/games assigned to them, even if it meant having to put one’s face in a bowl of flour to look for a door key. Joy, needless to say, looked ravishing in her gown!

Vroom, Vroom! The Groom arrives in style to ‘pick up the bride’.

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