Our Very Non-Traditional Tea Ceremony

12:00 PM

My sister planned and executed the most amazing tea ceremony ever. My husband is Filipino and his family is not familiar with tea ceremonies so we decided to do a hybrid version. We incorporated all the important aspects of the traditional Vietnamese/Chinese tea ceremony but made it easy to understand for his family as well (since most of my family doesn’t speak English very well).

The wedding itself was very non-traditional (not in a church, no priest, etc.). I still wanted to honor my heritage and family with the tea ceremony. Traditionally, the tea ceremony lasts hours and begins at the groom’s house and ends at the bride’s house. It includes loads of foods and gifts being carried from one home to the next.

We had a lot of family flying or driving in from out of town, so we wanted it to be as stress free as possible and didn’t want it to last all day long. The tea ceremony can be the day before the wedding but usually takes place the morning of the wedding. We decided to split the wedding events and did the tea ceremony the night before the wedding. I knew the day of the wedding would already be hectic as it is so that option made more sense to me.

My wonderful sister and mother planned the whole thing as a gift to Jonathan and me. All I had to do was dress up and show up. It was so special for us to have his grandmother and parents there to experience it with us. We also invited the bridal party to join in on the festivities.

The basis of the tea ceremony is to offer tea to the important people in our lives and in return they would present us with a gift (money or jewelry). Traditionally, the bride and groom’s parents both gift the bride with jewelry and money while the remainder of the family provides monetary gifts. They also include blessings and sweet words.

My favorite thing about the night was being able to have that moment with all of the special people in our lives. Two of my dad’s sisters flew in from Vietnam just to attend the wedding and that meant so much to me. We had 4 out of 8 of my dad’s siblings in one room and that was just a great moment.