Embracing My Vietnamese Culture

So to kick off our "suppose to be wedding week" I wanted to share with everyone about my Vietnamese culture. My parents were both born and raised in Vietnam, due to the Vietnam war and communism they wanted to move to America to have a better life for themselves but especially for their children. So with the help of my grandpa and some of my uncles who escaped Vietnam and struggled to make it to America, they worked really hard to help get the rest of my family including my parents over to America.

Because of this, I deeply love my culture. My parents' struggles and hardship has helped me become the person I am. I was raised in America but with Vietnamese culture and I wouldn't trade it for the world. First off, the food is beyond delicious, holidays are celebrated 10Xs bigger, family means everything and our traditional Vietnamese dresses (ao dai) are gorgeous!

A wedding in the Vietnamese culture is celebrated pretty big, its a serious deal! Nothing much different from an American wedding but we do so many other things that make it so much more special! Of course we have the wedding ceremony and celebration after but before the wedding ceremony, we have our traditional tea party with our close family. It usually happens in the morning before we head over to get married. I want to share with you guys the significance of it because It is so special and unique.

So first off, the bride wears this beautiful red ao dai (Vietnamese dress) with a gorgeous headpiece, Its more unique than a regular ao dai because it is red with lots of beading and details! The color red signifies good luck, new beginning, love, prosperity, wealth, anything amazing and great in life.

So the tea party starts off with the Groom, groomsmen, Groom's family having a procession in towards the Brides home. (oh also it is very important to have this done at your own home, it makes its very special that way) They are carrying presents and goods such as tea, candy, food. Once they make it to the bride's home, the bridesmaids meet the groomsmen and the groomsmen hands over the gifts to the bridesmaids to bring into the house. Then the tea ceremony begins. The meaning of this tea ceremony is the groom/groom's family asking the bride's family for their blessing. It also gives both side of the party to get to know one another. Then the bride gets introduced and we pay respects to our ancestors. We light candles and incense and bow down to honor and pray to our ancestors. (when I explain this, I like to bring up the movie Mulan, where she prays to her ancestors before going to war). And then after, our parents give us gifts welcoming us to the family and then that's pretty much it! Then we snack a little before going to church to get married!

I hope this made some sense to portray how a tea party is like. I was very excited about the tea party because I had an ao dai made especially for me made from Vietnam that was sent over for me to wear on my special day. (I am not able to buy the ones here because pre-made ones usually are made super tiny for skinny girls, and i'm not a skinny girl haha but It just makes it so special that its from Vietnam) We FaceTimed with an seamstress in Vietnam and she walked us through getting the measurements and then she made the dress from scratch within a couple weeks and then it was shipped over to us! I would only wear it for an hour on our wedding day so I decided that I wanted to share it with everyone! Its way too pretty to just be sitting in my closet. So I did an at home photoshoot with a bridal bouquet that I received from @fleurals. I am missing my headpiece, which is so so gorgeous but its sitting at the store so you guys will see the entire outfit on my big day but for now here is my wedding Ao Dai!