Wedding Day #3

The actual wedding was super simple. The bride and groom would be conducted to the family altar, where they paid homage to the Heaven and Earth, the family ancestors, and the Kitchen God. Tea, generally with two lotus seeds or two red dates in the cup, was offered to the groom’s parents. The bride and groom would then bow to each other and that would end the ceremony.

Immediately after the ceremony, the bride and groom were led to the bridal chamber. For the rest of the day, the room was open to visitors who could tease the couple.

The wedding banquet was generally a banquet for each family and their friends. The biggest deal was for the grooms family as a public assurance of the wedding.

One day after the wedding, the bride awakens early to be introduced to the grooms family and friends. She is then given a title depending on the grooms seniority in the family hierarchy.

Three days after the wedding, the bride and groom go to the brides family, but the bride is then received as a guest.

Wedding Day #2

The groom has to go and get the bride from her house, and on the way there, there is the dim of firecrackers, loud gongs and drums. The little parade is lead by the groom, followed by a young boy, symbolizing the future sons. And the bridal sedan chair was proceeded by attendants with lanterns and banners, musicians, and a ‘dancing’ lion or unicorn. When the groom gets to the brides house, her friends are waiting there and (get this) won't 'surrender' her until he gives them enough money. In some cases the groom would dine with the brides family with symbolic food.

Then the bride needs to get to the grooms house. The 'good luck woman' and the brides family would carry her on their backs to the bridal sedan chair and and attendant might shield her with a parasol, while another one might throw rice at her. In tougher times, the bride might be brought out in a wooden box with her feet padlocked if she was too reluctant to marry (!!!)

Firecrackers were set off as the bride stepped off the sedan chair to scare away evil spirits. The physical movement symbolized her leaving her family for the groom. The servants that joined her would be carefully chosen and would have to have compatible horoscopes with the bridegroom. The sedan chair itself was heavily curtained to prevent the bride from inadvertently glimpsing an unlucky sight, e.g. a widow, a well, or even a cat. Attendants scattered grain or beans, symbols of fertility, before her.

At the grooms house, more firecrackers would go off, while the bride had to cross a lit stove to cast away bad spirits. At this point the groom could lift the red veil and see the brides face.

The Wedding Day #1

On the actual wedding day, the bride would take a bath infused with pumelo, a variety of grapefruit, to cleanse her of evil influences. She puts on light make up, most likely, only for the skin, and sits in front of some Dragon and Phoenix candles. A 'good luck woman' comes to the wedding preparations and spoke auspicious words, and does her hair in the wedding style. Her hair is a very important part of the wedding, because it symbolizes her entering adulthood. After her hair is done, she climbs onto the back of either her eldest sister in law, or her 'good luck woman' and is brought into the main hall. She then puts on her jacket and a skirt and some red shoes. Her face is covered with either some red beads dangling from her Phoenix bridal crown or a red veil. After the preparations, she bows to her parents, and awaits the the bridal procession from the groom’s house.

The groom dresses in a long dress a red silk sash and red shoes. On his shoulder is a silk ball. The groom kneels at the family altar while his dad places a cap decorated with cypress leaves on his head. He then bows first before the tablets of Heaven and Earth and his ancestors, then to his parents and the assembled family members. His father then takes the silk ball away from his shoulder and places it on the top of the bridal sedan chair.

Preparations for the wedding

Traditionally, in preparation of the wedding, the bride and a few of her closest friends will be secluded into a separate part of the house to mourn of the bride being wed. They will often curse the husband, his family, and even the bride-to-be's family for separating the bride and her friends. The bride would emerge from seclusion on her wedding day.

On the grooms side, preparation was to prepare the wedding bed. The groom would chose someone with a lot of kids (kind of like good luck, cause the more kids you have, the better) and they would 'install' the newly purchased bed for the newlyweds. The funny part is that the servants would be the ones to actually install the bed. The 'installing' that the friend would do was just to move it slightly. It was more of a ceremony than actual labor. For extra fertility, they would have many children scramble the bed for red dates, oranges, lotus seeds, peanuts, pomegranates and other fruits. This all supposedly increased fertility.

Source: http://www.chcp.org/wedding.html#preparations