Wedding Date

Traditional Chinese will look into the Chinese Almanac (通勝) to select dates for various occasions: wedding, relocation, traveling, business openings, signing important contracts etc. For weddings, many Chinese parents will hire a professional fortune teller/psychic/feng shui see fu -- no idea what's the equivalent English term for this profession (命理風水師父, 簡稱睇相佬) -- to select a "good date". For simplicity's sake, let's just call this person, See Fu.


The cover of a Chinese Almanac.



Chinese Almanac contains hundreds of pages. This is a sample page.

As far as I know, See Fu needs to know the precise birth time and date (時晨八字) of the couple and their parents to calculate if there are any conflicts, and to avoid a wedding date that may clash with them. Does it make any sense for non-Chinese readers out there? Oh well, this is my best explanation. I'm not an expert in Chinese traditions, neither are my parents…this is all I know.

My parents are not very superstitious, so we do not plan to hire a See Fu to select a date for our wedding. All I'm gonna do is to look at the Chinese Almanac, pick a Saturday in spring/summer 2011, suitable for wedding and with no conflict among our zodiacs (including the parents). It also depends on the availability of the venue, so it's most likely the choice of our venue that will pick the date for us.

Ideally we want the wedding to be in May/June 2011. The most worrisome factor is the weather in May/June, Vancouver at this time may still be a bit rainy. We want our wedding to take place on a warm sunny day, so we can take photos outdoor with our families and friends. It's easier to pick what to wear in nice weather. Also as a consideration for our guests who need to make travel arrangements, May/June is generally not a peak season to travel.

We are visiting Vancouver in mid-February to pick our venue and to look at other bits and bobs. BMM's parents will join us there for one week and our parents will meet for the first time. We are very excited about the trip and will keep our readers posted.

Pre-Wedding Photos

A close friend of mine (LMM) is getting married in Hong Kong in December. Since we’ll be making our way to HK, we have decided to do three things there for our own wedding: 1) take pre-wedding photos, 2) purchase wedding favors and 3) print our invitation. Personally I think the Chinese market is more creative with a wider selection of wedding ideas in many respect, so we might as well take the opportunity while we are there.

I looked into doing pre-wedding photos in Vancouver, but it seems less common in the western world. Usually photos are taken the day of the wedding only. I am not entirely satisfied with the studios that provide the service to do pre-wedding photos due to limited locations, only a few sets of clothing, and the number of shots that are included in the package.

After talking to several friends on the topic, they recommended to look into China because there are many pretty outdoor locations to choose from. Many studios in HK can arrange photo shoot in China. I’m not sure whether these HK studios send you to their subsidiaries in China or someone from the HK office will travel with you to China to shoot the photos. At first, I was very skeptical about the quality of the shots and the skill of the photographers. Judging by the samples on the websites, the shots look great. I know the studios must put their best shots online and sometimes photos can be deceiving. But who doesn’t do that to showcase their business?

The studio assigns three employees to follow your pre-wedding photo shoot: a photographer, an assistant and a makeup artist. Generally, the studio provides 5-7 dresses along with accessories and makeup for the bride; the groom has about 4-6 attires; 1 set of personal clothing is expected at the photo shoot. The package includes a combination of outdoor and indoor locations. There are many outdoor locations to choose from, some require additional admission fees. Indoor studio photo shoot has lots of themes to choose from too. Most packages include 200-300 shots, 1-2 canvas, a bunch of printed images, several albums and frames in different sizes, small crystal ornaments, and a CD with ALL of your shots. The thing I care the most is getting ALL of our images, aside from that everything else is just additional to our expectation. The more you pay, the more you get!

Queen Class – has both HK and Shenzhen offices. Out of the many outdoor locations the studio offers, there are two places that we find very beautiful.

Fei Cua Hu (Da Ling Zhen)













Xiao Ju Zhai (Shenzhen)









Futu Vision – office located in Shenzhen. Also, we are interested in two outdoor locations the studio offers.

Evergreen Resort (Shenzhen)













Yang Mei Keng (Shenzhen)














We are still unsure if we will take the pre-wedding photos in China, it all depends on the weather and if time permits. Until then we will continue to look for other studios in Vancouver as our fall back plan.

Travel Diary - Chapter 1: Rome, Florence & Pisa

All this wedding planning gets one thinking about the past and what let up to it. As such let us take a moment to look back on some of the BMM and LMM adventures over the last year. As was said in the first episode of this blog, one of the interests that LMM and BMM share is a love of travel. Being in Europe to study for the year was of course too big of a temptation to resist the urge to explore. You may view some of our travel shots under the Photo Tab at the top of the blog.

One thing about travel in Europe is that if you are very flexible about the dates you can go places for very cheep. The M's coming from North America were not expecting to find the marvel of the "discount airline". There is nothing like Ryan Air or Easyjet back in the US or Canada, so this would be a new experience for them.

One day some of their friends talked about going to Germany for a short trip for only a few pounds. As soon as they got home, they hit the internet and soon came across the holy grail of cheap travel Ryanair. Christmas was coming up and it was starting to get cold and dark in Scotland. There was a cheap flight to Pisa, for only £57pp return (tax included), so the M's took the opportunity and had their first trip abroad planned. They flew from Glasgow to Pisa, took a train right away to Rome and stayed 4 days; then train over to Florence and spent 2 days there before returning to Pisa for 1 last day.

The First Ryanair Experience

The expression "you get what you pay for" has never had such a concert example as with a Ryanair trip, it was a bit of a shock to the M's but in the long run it made the trip more memorable. The day started out early, you see Ryanair will not fly out of the standard airports where all major airlines fly out of. This airline pick the most remote stretch of land that has a runway on it. In the case of Glasgow, Prestwick airport is about an hour by car outside of the city. To make matters worse, the only way to get there from Edinburgh for a morning flight is a single bus that leaves at 3:30am. So BMM and LMM still half… ok more like two thirds asleep dragged themselves to the bus, and managed to get to the airport. What greeted them at the airport was indeed a shock, now on normal airlines you get your boarding pass, it has your seat number on it, you go to the waiting lounge and wait for your row number to be called. Not Ryanair… With Ryanair you go to the counter to get your boarding pass, the counter staff carefully examine you and your bags, not to check that you are not a terrorist, but to make sure there is nothing else they can charge you for. Is you bag too big to be a carry on? Did you pay for online check in? etc. Once this screening is done you are handed a boarding pass. You take your boarding pass go through security where you then get to your gate. The gate is identified by a place card held up on a stick, with the location of the flight written in marker. Finally when the flight is ready to board, an announcement is made and every one pops up and rushes to the door like they are being chased by an angry bull. You see there are no assigned seats so first come first served. After fighting your way on to the plane you are greeted with the most spartan of accommodations. A seat that cannot recline, no magazine pouch below the table, a safety card that is glued to the seat in front of you and advertisement on every free surface. Of course don't expect any free food or beverage. But the actual flight is not that bad, it gets you from point A to point B, and that is what counts in the end.

Our Journey in Rome, Florence & Pisa

After the experience of discount air travel, the actual trip was very enjoyable, the M's toured the accent ruins of the Roman empire. They ate pizza and panini on the streets of Rome, wandered the vast expanses of the Vatican museum, where they got to see some of the more famous paintings and statues. But the absolute hi-light of Rome was a treasure that the Italians have called "Grand Soleil". In the central subway station had some samples of this sorbet dessert that you buy in packets to take home and put in the freezer. The lemon one is truly amazing.

Coliseum



Palatine Hill



Trevi Fountain



St. Peter's Basilica



Florence was the next stop on this adventure. It is a scenic city dominated by an impressive central cathedral, with some amazing architecture. There is also an amazing array of art work to see in this city. The M's are not the biggest fine art fans, so some of this charm was lost on them. However they saw The David, as well as some other statues and paintings. After one full day of admiration on fine arts and architecture, the M's decided to visit the legendary outlet, The Mall, a one hour bus ride from Florence. Although it's a small outlet, the brand names there are big and the prices will "shock" you (in a good way). Finally there was a one day stop at Pisa on the way back to the airport. Pisa is a very small city with the only major attraction being the oh so famous leaning tower.

Duomo



Statue of David



Leaning Tower of Pisa



The flight home was as exciting at the flight in but by this time we knew what to expect. Arrived back in Edinburgh on the 24th tired but happy, just in time to experience all that Edinburgh had for the Christmas holiday season.