hey (culture ask incoming) im wondering about weddings in china and whether people generally wear more western style wedding clothes or traditional chinese style?
I would say Chinese/hanfu style wedding attire has been making a big comeback (so to speak) in recent years as a side effect of the hanfu revival movement, but there is also Chinese wedding attire that is distinctly it’s own genre of clothing, i.e, bridal/groom wear. When you look at it, you know (if you know) that it’s wedding attire. More on this in a second.
Still, for those who can afford it, it is popular these days to wear both western style wedding attire and Chinese wedding attire. Most people who I’ve seen wear both change into the Chinese attire for the wedding banquet. If they wear a western wedding dress, it will be at the ceremony/walking down the aisle. Likewise, if they wear both hanfu and Chinese wedding attire, they will wear the hanfu for the ceremony. Another thing to keep in mind is that in China, it is quite popular to take wedding photos in a myriad of outfits, not just the one you will be wearing on the occasion. So people nowadays may take photos in all the different kinds of wedding attire (via clothing rentals), whether they are going to wear it at their wedding or not. In that spirit, they still technically wear both western and Chinese style wedding clothes.
Hopefully that answers your question there. I have a #chinese wedding that covers a lot of videos but in which you can see the types of gowns and all that which I will briefly go into below.
So: when it comes to “traditional Chinese style” wedding attire, what does that really mean?
To me, three main types of clothing come to mind: 1) Chinese Wedding Attire™ , 2) Chinese style wedding attire, 3) Wedding hanfu
1) Chinese Wedding Attire™, AKA 秀禾服 Xiùhé
Visually distinct, it is not really hanfu nor qizhuang but a secret third thing…. In this case, it is a blend of Qing dynasty and Republican era styles dubbed “xiuhe”. As bridal wear specifically, it is actually a rather recent trend (21st century), but it’s become a fixture in Chinese wedding wear. While the colors can vary wildly and magnificently, the classic colors here are gold and red.
The style that exists today shows Qing dynasty influence in its construction and at its core consists of both bride and groom wearing embroidered tang suit tops and a matching silk skirt. The bride usually wears hair ornaments/pins in place of a veil. Since there are pins in the hair, brides may wear a xiapei/cape with a long train instead.
A few bridal styles (keep in mind that these are just the classic cuts and colors—there are other styles/colors that contain recognisable elements of bridal wear but are made of different fabrics, have different draping, have more tassels, have a softer look, etc):
2)Chinese style wedding attire
This is admittedly somewhat of the same thing as Wedding Attire™, just toned down as it was more popular/commonplace in the last century, when it was what was most affordable for most, but it’s a style that nonetheless comes to mind. With this, the key is simply that the bride wears a mostly all red dress/top+skirt and the groom wears a suit. Bride and groom will also often wear a red flower/ribbon pinned to their top or worn around them gift-wrapped style, haha. My mom just wore a red top and bottom to her wedding dinner (that’s as much detail as I’ve ever gotten out of her lol) when she got married in the early 80s. Another thing is, since white is a funerary color/color of death in Asian cultures, some people also just wear Western style wedding dresses that are red.
3) Wedding hanfu
As you can imagine, this is ornate hanfu that is worn for weddings. Song/Ming style hanfu is particularly popular here.This clothing is traditional in the sense that it has historical basis and is what those who could afford to word for weddings historically. Historical wedding colors varied but color pairings like red & blue and red & green are traditional (man wears red, woman wears blue/green; 红男绿女). Wearing hanfu for weddings is a trend that has become popular with the hanfu revival movement and is, as you might guess, a trend for Han Chinese people
Chinese ethnic minorities have their own wedding attire that they may choose to wear/wear as well (if they do a banquet, etc). Or they might just wear red/xiuhe/western style dresses, too—this is another area where wedding photos let you basically wear everything.
Agreed that it’s commonplace nowadays for weddings in China to involve multiple outfit changes, so that both Chinese-style wedding attire (hanfu, xiuhefu, qipao, qungua, etc.) and Western-style wedding attire are worn. In addition to the ceremony and banquet/reception, there’s also the Chinese 接亲/jieqin (“picking up the bride”) tradition that occurs prior to the ceremony, during which the groom goes to pick up the bride from her parent’s house. Most couples choose to wear Chinese-style wedding attire for jieqin and other pre-ceremony activities, even if they wear Western-style wedding attire for the rest.
Below - examples of couples wearing wedding hanfu during jieqin activities (1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12):
It’s also common for the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and parents to wear hanfu if the couple does (1/2):
The red sash and large red flower that the groom and/or bride (usually the groom) often wear are called 披红/pihong and 大红花球/dahong huaqiu, respectively. They are mostly red, but can also have green colors.
Asked by Anonymous
