I went to one where I was part of the procession going to everyone houses etc and what surprised me was the staged aspect of it. It seems like the photographer isn't there to capture the moment and events so much as to direct people on what to do for the best photo effect and the whole point of the wedding isn't to join man and wife and all that, it's to make a cool movie to show how perfect your big day supposedly was.

There was one part where the groom walks into the bride's bedroom, quite a symbolic event I would have thought but the photographer had everyone set up before it happened, instructed the wife how to sit on the bed for best photo effect and the groom actually had to enter the room several times before the shot was 'authentic' enough.
The whole thing seemed like the people there were just actors playing their role as directed and not two people making a lifelong commitment.

I have been the photographer at Chinese weddings. Not official. I do it for free. I love full day Chinese weddings.

Yes, my own.Great lesson in Chinese culture as my (now ex) wife dropped all pretenses and commenced to suck the life blood and money out of me.

Second time around, still haven't learned (but I have two beautiful kids out of this deal).

Lesson learned - I might be a great teacher but I suck at learning life's lessons.

i've been to more Chinese weddings than I can remember. All very similar, even my own. It's the quintessential face event where the bride's worth is valued by the cost of the wedding, and the gifts received (which turn a net profit, unless you're on bad terms with the in-laws, in which case don't do a Chinese wedding). Short, stressful, boring, and always disappointing for the bride because she has been permanently valued at less-than-infinity (but at least her bedding was better than X acquaintance's). Never been to a non-Chinese wedding, actually.

Boring and soulless like everything else in China.

Wow, that's a very......"traditional" wedding. I thought paying to get to see the bride only happened in the villages now.

I've been to a few wedding meals, mainly in the city, which followed the same script & almost the same menus! Arrive, happy couple greet all the guests, everyone eats, a speech or two, the groom goes round every table gan beiing everyone & then has to be carried out. 

Then the waitresses bring plastic bags (or in expensive places, plastic boxes) & all the leftover food gets taken home by the guests! All very similar and a bit boring. 

I've been to two I really enjoyed. The first was ScotsAlan's weeding meal. There were a lot of works colleagues there, both Chinese & Western, so it was a fun do & some of us hit the bars in GZ after. 

The 2nd was a village wedding in Guangdong. This was a cousin of Scots wife. Coach left GZ on the Friday & returned Sunday. It was one of these typically Chinese organised weekends. Slightly grotty but cheap hotel, chaos on the bus as too many people (some only coming along for a shopping trip!) but a little ad of fun! I didn't go on the breaking down the door part in the morning as I had a wander round the back streets of the city centre with my wife (I'd guess this place was probably 4th tier!). 

The afternoon was spent with photo shoots & a little ceremony in the family home, a walk to Scots wife's home village & meeting grandmother, all the while drinking cans of lukewarm harbin beer. The meal was great....a marquee set out on a side road, cooked in massive woks on wood fires & some very good seafood. 

I'd take a village wedding over a city one any day!

Only one, and between a Brit and a fairly westernised local girl.

We only had to really be there for their entrance to the restaurant, and all that followed that.

The B&G looked thoroughly stressed, :(

there was a larg screen and projector, over which they had showing a stack of 'wedding photos' (those stupid things were the couple pay exorbitant prices to pay some dick photographer to pay them to wear stupid outfits and sit or stand in ridiculous positions in authentic, wonderful, secluded natural settings... like hundreds of others (which are then photoshopped!) As well as the photos of other significant times in their lives (with stupid comments written on them in that 'cutetsy' thing that's happened in the last decade or 2).

However, there was also a video sent over by his mates who couldn't come over from Britland... that was quite amusing

The endless photos were annoying - and having the groom being photoed with the 'gift' of cigarettes and hongboas was just so tacky! Also, having those wankers get up close and personal to the B&G during the actual ceremony, ruining any photos for any others was very annoying! If it wasn't such a special occasion for them, I'd've said something to get them to move (which they wouldn't have understood...).

The groom originally made it clear that we were under no obligation to come along, as it was just going to be a tacky chinese wedding.. but I wouldn't have missed it for the world (or at least a small portion of it), and for that I think he was extremely grateful.

Btw, I've never understood - why is the wedding considered the brides big day? Why not the grooms??? Doesn't he really give a sht?

I been to 6 weddings.....mine was the cheapest and quickest  and best. maybe 60 people+/-.

I went to one, out in the boonies, hour and a half from home and I  am willing to bet that I have more time on their wedding video than the lovely bride and groom do.  very extravagant big shot thing...  maybe 600 people for lunch/ dinner and they did it twice....1200 at least. expensive bottles of booze on every table. outdoor giant field covered ....  

One in Wuchuan  ... it was OK, met some white guys, so pretty special.

My Brother-in-law in Guangzhou, his was a real, we need your money thing... it was big (3-400) and it was, give me your money....people came to this wedding from a long ways away and donated..... deceased father-in-law was a very well respected Mao Tse Tung kind of guy imagine a 6 foot 3 250lb chinaman with a badge ... people listen.....  no money but a true follower and voice for Mao, leader of locals in the region .

another one out in the sticks...  Mother in law has lots of family...not quite as extravagant  as the one with the goofy videographer, but it was a lot of people  ...maybe 4-500..  the meal at this one was really not that good and little booze ...  a big show with little money...... that is not true...it had to be expensive, just not extravagant.

they like to drag me along...... a white guy is appreciated at some of these events, it seems.

I been here 3.5 years

We had a pretty awesome time at a friend's wedding in the mountains of Zhangjiajie. Loved every minute of it. Zero complaints. No money-grubbing, nothing. Just a real, good old-fashioned Cinderella story.

Yes, I've been to three.  Two Han and one Uyghir.  The latter was really good and the former were both as per above.  Souless and exercises in face gaining and money accumulating.  I thought they were both quite sad.

In fact, I wrote a Blog about them on EEC a year or so ago.

I was married in China but it took place in an old hall in a small city in Xinjiang.  The only witnesses were the old couple standing next to us who were getting married at the same time.  No wedding party, thank God.

Been to a few Chinese weddings over the years.

All have been copycats of Western-style weddings with all the trappings and accouterments. And all were fun, enjoyable, genuinely happy with radiant bride and goofy groom.

The entertainment value of the Chinese weddings I've been to seems to be a hybrid of traditional cargo cult wedding ceremonies (a local community status thing of the past) and Taiwan-Hong Kong-deritiive documentary rite of passage photography to be passed down to the next generation or burned on the next ancestor worship, street-corner, light-my-fire rite.

Notwithstanding, I see very little difference between a wedding in China and a wedding in the West. It boils down to traditions, rituals, church or no church, and later... what's for dessert.

I have been to many weddings when I first arrived. It was interesting the first one or two of them. After that, I only go to weddings that are of close friends. All others, I just give them the red packet of money and wait for the cigarettes and candy to be delivered. I tell my Chinese friends that they should just send out wedding invitations that say send me your money, save the money you would spend on all the siliness for show, and get on with the honeymoon/sex.

Yeah I've been to a few, I just saw all the guys trying to compete with the groom with regards to how much they could drink. In one of them the groom just passed out before the wedding was over.

is it enough to say that my chinese wedding was one of the worst days of my life?

my western wedding back home was great though

(yes married twice but the same woman)

@dom87

so you were convicted twice