Andy Vogel's Taiwan Pages

The majority of our wedding ceremonies were performed at Jenny's parents' house, on the morning before the banquet. The traditions mostly relate to the "transfer" of the bride from her parents' family to the groom's, when they come to pick her up and bring her back to their home (in our case, a local hotel!). The celebrations include the exchange of gifts, prayers to the family ancestors, and many wishes for luck.
The groom has to pass several tests from the bridesmaids and friends before he can retrieve his bride. Her friends went pretty easy on me, so I only had to answer a few questions about our relationship, and then I was allowed to bring her downstairs to the rest of the family. The red symbol on the wall is the character for "double happiness", which is always used for wedding celebrations.
When we arrived at the house, we were presented with many sweet foods, intended to encourage a happy and prosperous life together. This sweet soup included home-made rice flour balls......
which the family and friends made earlier that morning. The straw basket seen here is also traditionally used to shelter the bride's head whenever she would be exposed to the jealous sky.
Like most people in Taiwan, we had a separate legal ceremony, which others did not attend. So the wedding morning included many of the traditional exchanges that are associated with a western church or temple ceremony. Jenny's parents presented me with a gold necklace....
and then her father handed us the rings to exchange. There is another fun, local tradition at this point....
We each allow our spouse to put the wedding ring onto our finger, but only half-way. This indicates that we are each still our own person and cannot be controlled. The person placing the ring tries to force it over the second knuckle, but the spouse receiving the ring quickly curls the fingers to prevent it.
The most emotional part of the day came when we bowed to Jenny's parents and said goodbye. Traditionally, this would mean the end of her ties to her parents. Even though that isn't really true for us, there were a lot tears.
Our departure also included several traditions. There were fire crackers to scare away evil spirits....
Jenny had to drop a red paper fan from the car window as we drove away, and a family member threw a bowl of water on the car- both of these symbolize her departure from the family.
At her parents' house, we had real fire crackers. If we had been returning to my parents' house, someone would have greeted us with more explosives. At the hotel, however, they just had an amplifier playing a recording!
Continue to pictures from the wedding banquet.