(Ed. Note: I am feeling a bit disheartened and apprehensive about continuing to post these stories. While a lot of you seem to enjoy them and the feedback has been very positive, this past week I discovered that a website (http://bestweddingspeechs.info/) stole my post from last week, “Wedding Follies, Part 3″ and posted it on their site, including the photos. I have attempted to contact them requesting they remove it, but they are ignoring those requests. It is especially uncomfortable because this is our personal life (although I am aware that it is a risk one accepts when choosing to publish something on the internet). For the time being, I will continue to post, but I obviously am struggling with whether or not to continue.)
Check out part 1, part 2, and part 3 to catch up on what you’ve missed!
Because my husband and I both live away from our hometowns, because we knew his family would want to have a wedding celebration in his hometown that they could all attend, and because my family was visiting for only a short time, we ended up having two weddings in less than a week. That’s right – the wedding in the city we live in was on Monday, and the wedding in his hometown was on Saturday! Are we crazy, or what (don’t answer that)?!
One wedding just wasn't enough...
Unfortunately, this meant that on the day after our wedding here in Hebei, we had to make the long, 15 hour trek to Inner Mongolia. So after approximately 3 hours of sleep, my husband and I drug ourselves out of bed at 3am, grabbed our things, and headed to the hotel our families were staying at to depart. Luckily, his parents had rented a large 15-passenger van and drivers, so although the day was very long, we didn’t have to worry about anything once we got in the van and started out.
The Great Wall from a rest stop on the way to Inner Mongolia.
We made our way to and through Beijing, and through the Inner Mongolian countryside to my husband’s hometown. Once we arrived, we had a few days to spend visiting his family, eating, watching my parents learn to make dumplings, eating, confirming details with the wedding company, and eating.
Learning how to fold dumplings.
We’d met with the wedding company while visiting at Spring Festival and had decided on a lot of details at that time. My husband’s mother had also been busy since that time, so I assumed that most everything was set.
I was mistaken.
When we met with the wedding company, it turned out that we had to tell them all over again what we wanted and didn’t want (I’m not sure why we bothered filling out a paper that said exactly this the first time we met them). We also discovered that the ceremony was not planned at all – something we’d thought his mother had done. We decided to do a near-copy of our first ceremony (thank goodness we had experience with this sort of thing!), but now had to explain it all again to a new host. My husband even had to explain the tea ceremony to her during rehearsal (and I thought this was a Chinese custom)! Needless to say, she was not our favourite person…more on her later.
With all this running around and last-minute planning, as Saturday loomed I was glad we weren’t doing the full wedding again – we were starting at the “greeting people as they arrived at the restaurant” part.
We actually got to sleep in a little on Saturday morning, ate breakfast, and then headed back up to the hotel room where the hair and make up lady met me. She did a great job (although I did make her re-do my hair once), even though she seemed very nervous to be working on a foreigner.
We had TWO inflatable arches AND elephants at this wedding! Score!!
At some point in the morning, a videographer showed up and started filming us. He filmed me getting made up and also spent some time in my parents’ hotel room with them and my brother (I think filming them wishing us well, but I’m not sure, since I haven’t seen that video). Finally, my hair and make up were done and I was ready to get dressed. My mother and my husband prepared to help tie me into my dress, but…
“Uh, camera guy? Yeah, I don’t know you that well. You are most definitely NOT staying in here and filming me while I change!!”
I don’t know exactly what my husband said, but I am pretty sure it wasn’t a direct translation. The guy even had the nerve to protest, but my husband put his foot down. No weird strangers in the room while I change clothes (at least not of the male variety).
Dressed and ready, we all made our way downstairs to welcome the guests. This was actually a point of issue earlier, along with toasting each table during lunch, because it didn’t seem to be a custom in my husband’s hometown, so his parents were not sure if we had to do it. We finally decided that since we didn’t even know most of these people who were taking time out of their day to attend our wedding (many of them even giving gifts of money to us), the least we could do was personally welcome them and toast them to thank them for coming.
Perhaps at this point I should mention something my husband’s father told me at Spring Festival. I am apparently the only foreigner to marry a Chinese person in their hometown (I could have it wrong and it could be that I’m the only foreign woman…but either way, I’m rare). I’m something like 1 in 400,000. You can probably see where this is going – lots of staring, even amongst my husband’s extended family and their friends and colleagues. Many of them didn’t seem to even know what to do around us.
Anyway, we welcomed our awestruck guests and then my father and I made our way to a room at the back of the banquet hall to get ready for our walk down the aisle.
What a set of ba***rds! I hope you’re aware of the affiliate scheme they’ve set up, just in case you generate some sales for a bunch of nothingness… haha I’m hooked on your wedding series, please keep sharing
It’s frustrating, that’s for sure. I’m glad you’re enjoying the posts though!
I’d say that you’re the only foreign woman to marry a local. Given the number of Western men that flock to China these days I’d be surprised if you were the only foreigner to have married a Chinese person in your hubby’s hometown.
Anyway, great wedding story and I’m looking forward to catching up on your previous installments.
You’re probably right, but his hometown is pretty small and I’ve never seen another foreigner when I’ve been there, so it’s possible. Who knows! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
I’ve been enjoying your wedding series so please don’t stop it because of a bunch of jerky Internet thieves! I’m really sorry to hear that happened to you. Oddly this is the third post today that I’ve read about someone having stuff stolen from their blog. Creepy.
Thanks! Some folks made a couple of suggestions for action I could take – we’ll see what comes of them. It’s such a crappy site too – it steals content from everywhere and posts it (I suspect without anyone’s permission). It’s annoying and creepy, that’s for sure.
Although I am a lawyer myself, I am not too familiar with cyber laws in general and certainly not with the laws in China. But this thing happens quite often, that a site that finds an interesting post in another site re-posts it in its own site. So long as it is clear that it is a copied post and its source and author is made clear, I think it is alright. They say imitation is the best form of flattery. And your site becomes more widely known and probably gets more traffic. But of course if you are not comfortable with it, you should write to protest and ask that it be removed and for an apology. Tossing each table is a common practice here in Malaysia in Chinese weddings. And it is a nice and more personal way to say thank you, instead of a general toss. However, it can be rather taxing and sometimes “inebriating” if it involves a lot of gan bei 干杯 bottoms up. The trick is to get the groom to only sip or a back up or an assistant to do the actual bottoms up. But sometimes guests do insist that the groom himself does the bottoms up and this can be troubling if he is a not one who can take a lot of alcohol. You should carry on posting and not be defeated by people who would re-post your posts in their own site(s).
Thanks for your comment. I know it happens, and I also know it’s a risk one takes by posting anything online, yet it is still uncomfortable when it actually happens. I was most upset that I was never asked permission, that the photos were used, and that my name was never properly attributed, although I should be happy that the links back to my own site were not changed. It’s still weird though. :S
Toasting each table was actually fun – there were people who attended that I never would have even known were there had we not done it. It was nice to connect to our guests that way, and I thought it was a nice way to thank them for coming. We drank water the whole time – 25 mouthfuls of bai jiu would have spelled disaster!!
Thanks again for your advice – I really appreciate it!
They should have had properly identified the source and the author. Otherwise it is more akin to theft and you may have a rightful cause of action. We are all waiting to read more of your 2nd wedding ceremony.
That’s what I thought too. Asking permission to use it would have been a nice touch too. Ah, the internet!
Trust me, there’s a couple interesting stories from the second wedding you don’t want to miss!
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