Vietnamese Weddings

[CypressResident]

Have you been to a Vietnamese wedding ceremony or reception? If yes, tell me about your experience and thoughts on it. If fact, it doesn't even have to be Vietnamese. If you've been to any Eastern ceromonies/receptions - chime in.

[musicman]

Have you been to a Vietnamese wedding ceremony or reception? If yes, tell me about your experience and thoughts on it. If fact, it doesn't even have to be Vietnamese. If you've been to any Eastern ceromonies/receptions - chime in.

I have been to both Indian and Vietnamese wedding/ceremonies. Do you have any specific questions about them? i can give you my thoughts. The Indian one was sooooooooooo long! everyone waited in line to greet the new couple. very ceremonial. The vietnamese reception was very nice. I was surprised at the amount of checks the couple received. no cheapskates allowed.

[Jeebus]

I've been to a few Vietnamese weddings. There are basically three types: 1. Fully-traditional, 2.Semi-traditional, and 3. American. The first two are typically Buddhist ceremonies, as the third is Christian.

The fully-traditional wedding starts with the groom and his entire family going to the house of his bride and offering gifts of gold jewelery and exotic fruits to their family. They then share in a tea drinking ceremony which serves as a sort of "vow exchange". They then ALL (both parties) load up and travel to the groom's house where they have a special dinner hosted by the groom's parents. After dinner, the bride stays there, he family leaves and the wedding ceremony is that night. The wedding ceremony is a banquet style ceremony similar to our American post-wedding receptions. Cash is the most preferred gift (the few I've been too, the couple walked away with at least 25k or more in cash gifts!). The bride and groom go to each table, listen to the family give their "well-wishes", accept their gift , thank the family, and then take pictures with them. They HAVE to do this for EVERY table there!

The semi-traditional wedding skips all the ceremonial stuff & dinner at the families' two houses and starts at the restaurant and is the same as above.

The American is basically the standard fare wedding we've all been too. Sometimes they will mix and match ceremonies, foods, religion, and culture at the reception. I've seen Catholic wedding cememonies with Vietnamese receptions. Either way, I've never been bored at one yet!

I have been to both Indian and Vietnamese wedding/ceremonies. Do you have any specific questions about them? i can give you my thoughts. The Indian one was sooooooooooo long! everyone waited in line to greet the new couple. very ceremonial.

I've been told that at Indian wedding receptions the bride has to sit in a chair behind the groom and is not allowed to be spoken to or touched during the entire reception. All the greetings are given to the groom. Is this true?

[Guest Sebastian De La Ghetto]

My wife is vietnamese, and my parents are from mexico city. Our wedding was in between Traditional and Semi traditional. Pretty much all the traditional stuff mentioned above, only the ceremony had to be said in english to accomodate my family. the actual wedding day was an ALL DAY affair. House ceremoney at 10am, church at 2pm, and reception at new kim son at 6pm-1am. Good food, great music. (we hired orchestra salmerum, great salsa band!) People from the wedding next door (which ended 1hr earlier) streamed into ours to dance.

We only received 2 empty envelopes, which is pretty good. I've heard horrror stories of people getting ripped off by as many as 8 empty envelopes, which is unbelievable since the guests are all 'friends and family'.