Wedding Breeze

At 8.30pm one day before the wedding, items will be placed on the marital bed and the couple will not be allowed to enter the room until they have held the wedding ceremony. If you have a new marital house, then it is quite simple. It means you will go to your new house and get this completed. If you are going to live in your house or your groom’s current place, then I wonder where they are going to sleep.

That little point aside, this tradition is to symbolise good health, abundance of fortune and offspring for the couple. They will put a lot of things on the bed.

Eight types of auspicious seeds, grains oranges, red packets, and metallic discs will be placed on the bed. Seeds are known as ‘zi’ in Chinese, and they sound the same as ‘children’. Hence, with so many types of seeds, it is to bless the couple to have children early. The discs are to signify a blissful marriage, but I have never seen this before.

I’m just wondering how to carry this out. My house is currently being built and I am not sure whether they will be able to finish construction in November, in time for us to do up the interior design and get ready for our marriage. If not, my husband may have to live with my parents, or I will live with his family. Does that mean we must buy the marital bed first? There is no space to put a queen-sized bed in my room, and to bring the bed from any of our houses to our new house will require quite a lot of logistics and money.

Oh well, I’m sure everything will turn out well.

Source: The Sunday Times 27 July 2008