What are the wedding customs in different parts of China?

According to folk tradition, the bride's dressing is not an individual act, but an integral part of the wedding ceremony. These quaint etiquette customs, such as bathing and changing clothes, "climbing to the top" and "opening face", are popular in the north and south of China.

Open face, also called open face. The so-called face-opening is to shave it off with a knife or twist it off with two threads, to frame the hair on the face or neck and trim the sideburns. The day before the wedding, and a blessed woman with two children. In modern times and modern times, some areas still have such customs and habits. Mr. Ba Jin's novel Spring once wrote such a detail. Hui is getting married and has been making faces at Hui for weeks. While carefully twisting the hair on Hui's face and neck with silk thread, she told Hui some etiquette of going to other people's homes to be a daughter-in-law. After you open your face, cover your face, or sit in a sedan chair or ride to your husband's house.

The bride in Shaoxing, Zhejiang held a bathing ceremony at her parents' home. The ceremony was presided over by two middle-aged couples, who were married and had many children and daughters. Each person holds a cup sieve in one hand, puts some red fruit duck eggs on the sieve, and then puts a big footbath. Another person poured the hot water from the cup sieve into the footbath, then dipped the towel in water and let the couple wipe it three times in a row. The bride performs a "face-opening ceremony" after bathing. According to local customs, unmarried women are called "hairy faces". Make their faces public for the first time before marriage. Ask an old woman to wring the hair out of her face, trim her eyebrows and trim her sideburns, then pull out seven pieces of the bride's hair and mix them with the groom's hair to make a thread, so that the bride can tie a bun, which means "getting married and starting a career".

In Huzhou area, the man's family gives the woman a "first dish", that is, a sedan chair and a "face plate" at the same time. There are six dishes in the "open face plate", which are meat, fish, chicken, happy fruit, firecrackers, red candles and rouge pollen. After the bride's family receives the opening ceremony, the aunt and other female elders will open the ceremony for the bride. Ironically, in some places, after the bride's face is uncovered, she will be coated with a thick layer of gouache by Xi Niang until she can't see her eyebrows.

On the eve of the wedding, it is an old custom in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. When the time is right, the bride will hold a "departure ceremony" at her parents' home. Ask a lucky woman to pick some grapefruit leaves and boil water to bathe the bride. After taking a shower, she will put on new clothes, then wring out the hair on her face with red and green silk thread and comb the original braid into a "sedan chair bun". After taking a bath, opening face and combing hair, my mother served a cooked chicken with all white feathers, and both the head and the bottom of the chicken should be eaten, which means "a good head and a good tail".

Some places pay special attention to the bride's "superior position" and "appearance". In Gaoyou, Jiangsu, girls go to the top first on the eve of marriage. On the day when the girl bathes and changes clothes, she sits facing the dresser, lights a red candle and drinks two cups of tea first, commonly known as "silent tea", which means that she has become a bride since then and can't talk much. It is customary not to talk until the in-laws have had tea. Then ask two lucky women to "climb to the top" for her. They first took the girl's braid apart, combed it to the back of the head with bangs into a bun, smeared rouge pollen on her face, and then folded it into a double layer with two red gauze bands. Tie 12 tightly from the forehead to the back of the head, which is vulgar and "Peace in December", indicating that the bride should be taught patience. According to custom, you can't shout even if you have a headache. You must put up with it. Legend has it that only in this way can you not lose your temper when you encounter something unsatisfactory at your husband's house. The wedding will be held on the first day after the husband comes home. It was the Japanese husband-in-law who specially invited the "new mother" to open the noodles for his daughter-in-law. The newlywed wife got up early, washed and dressed and sat up. The new mother picked up two eggs cooked in advance and dyed red, rolled them on her new wife's face a few times, wiped her forehead hair up with a red gauze belt, took off her short hair with a pick, painted it with perfume, brushed it off, twisted the hair off her face with double cotton wool, and trimmed her eyebrows into thin curves.

Before the wedding in Lishui, Zhejiang, the woman should ask her mother to comb her hair. A mother who combs her hair should choose both parents and aunts with many children. Because it is usually in the evening to dress up the bride, the woman wants to invite a pair of unmarried girls with a good life to hold lanterns for the bride. Besides combing her hair, her mother will put it on the bride. A well-dressed bride, wearing a rockhopper, a palace costume, a gown, a jade belt around her waist, a red skirt and ornaments all over her body, looks like a queen.

In Henan province, eldest sister-in-law combs her hair for her sister who is getting married. There are two situations. One is to comb your hair in a bun, which means that your sister is going to be a daughter-in-law. One is to comb a girl's hairstyle, that is, to comb a long braid, which means that an elder sister is a daughter to be married, and then she will be tied into a bun by her husband's sister-in-law or aunt. There is a song when combing the girl's hair. In Changtan County, northern Henan Province, the lyrics are: "The first seven, the last eight, the husband's family sent together. The husband's family made two and a half hectares, and the mother's family made two and a half hectares, and they got married halfway. "

The bride's dress is very exquisite, which is the most brilliant moment in a woman's life. After modern times, urban men and women got married, the bride wore a veil and walked around in a long white dress, with two children behind her. This is the result of the influence of European and American wedding customs. In terms of decoration, with the improvement of people's consumption level, brides usually dress themselves up with gold, silver and jewelry.

The bride's dress is the most exquisite in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province. According to local customs, all newly married women must have three sets of clothes to wear during and after the wedding. The first set: cotton trousers, commonly known as "cotton trousers with meat", were given to the bride by the man when he greeted the bride. In addition to the wedding day, you can wear this suit when you go back to your hometown the next day, when you go back to your mother's house on the first Spring Festival after marriage, when your mother attends the ceremony of "chanting Buddha and opening the fast hall" after 50 years old, and when you attend the wedding of colleagues and relatives. The second set: a flower skirt with a pearl crown and a pink embroidered phoenix wearing peony and other patterns, which was rented together with the sedan chair. This suit is only for sedan chairs and weddings. The third set: homespun clothes, indigo homespun headscarf, indigo homespun shirt, blue and white printed homespun trousers, indigo homespun long skirt, pink printed homespun wrapped calf, blue printed homespun socks and embroidered toe cap. This set is for work after marriage. The shoes worn by the bride at the wedding are also very particular, and three pairs should be prepared. Wear shoes with the pattern of "Jade Hall and Wealth" when holding a wedding ceremony; The shoes placed on the "sedan chair front plate" cake when getting on the sedan chair, commonly known as "stepping cake shoes", are embroidered with the design of Fushou Qi Mei, and are carried to the man's house with the sedan chair that receives the bride; The third pair is the replacement shoes after marriage, embroidered with plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum patterns.

There is also a strange custom of dressing among the people. The so-called "dressing clothes" are red cotton-padded jackets. The formation of this custom is of course related to the fact that most happy events are held in winter, so it is not surprising to wear a big red cotton-padded jacket to get married in winter. Strangely, brides in some places in Jiangxi have to wear "make-up clothes" on sedan chairs, even if they get married in hot summer. Because of local customs, when the bride is introduced, she is carried into the hall by her uncle and uncle's elders. At this time, relatives and neighbors, old and young, can hit the bride on the back with wooden sticks. If you don't wear cotton-padded clothes, this is unbearable. There is also an incomprehensible strange custom in the local area, that is, adding a dirty rag temporarily borrowed from the coolie to the bride's bright red new cotton-padded jacket. I don't know why. There is also a custom in Zhejiang that the bride must wear a cotton-padded jacket when she gets on the sedan chair. There is a little flexibility, that is, if they get married in hot weather in June and July, the bride can put a ball of cotton in her coat pocket instead of wearing a cotton-padded jacket. As the saying goes, "the bride has no cotton, and her husband is worthless (does not love)."

There is also the custom of the bride wearing a new wedding dress. In Fuyang, Zhejiang, when the sedan chair is carried to the woman's house and placed on the dustpan, the bride begins to make up and change clothes. After changing her coat and trousers, she will stand on a steaming bucket and put on a red cotton-padded jacket and trousers. Interestingly, when wearing a rockhopper and preparing to wear a red skirt, 12 eggs should be put down from the waistband and rolled out from under the trouser legs. It is said that this will make the bride lay eggs like a hen any month after marriage.

The wedding dress of an old-fashioned bride in Quanzhou, Fujian Province is called "Li". When the sedan chair arrives, the bride is taken to the hall to freshen up with her bride's escort, which is commonly called "dressing up the sedan chair". A blessed woman named "Bing" crowned her and then sent the bride to wear her back. "Bin" wore a belly skirt for the bride, which was made of red cloth. There are 18 things in the skirt, such as Gleditsia sinensis, iron ore tailings, mud, pork slices, etc.

The dress of the bride in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province is very modern, and she has to wear a pair of colored glasses to get on the sedan chair. People who don't know why feel strange. In fact, this custom originated from a superstitious custom. According to local customs, the bride's eyes are very poor. In her opinion, the bride in wedding dress is poor, the matchmaker is poor and her husband's family is poor. So there is a custom: after the bride puts on her new wedding dress and gets on the sedan chair, she must close her eyes until she enters the bridal chamber and sits on the bed. But in the complicated wedding process, it is really difficult for the bride to insist. Later, the wise man came up with a way to wear glasses without closing his eyes, which was really convenient.

The bride at the wedding is the most beautiful and dazzling. She will not only be appreciated and praised by people around her, but also attract the envy and jealousy of ghosts and gods. Therefore, in order to avoid sadness, the bride's dress often has some "fly in the ointment". This makes the bride's decoration custom as kaleidoscope, strange and strange.

The bride in Cangwu, Guangxi must wear black clothes, black pants, black socks and black shoes when getting married, which is staggering. In the mountainous area of Shengxian County, Zhejiang Province, the bride must wear plain clothes to get on the sedan chair, and when she arrives at the man's house, she can put on auspicious clothes to attend the wedding. Jiangsu Jingjiang brides wear plain clothes when they get married: soil-green cloth clothes and soil-green cloth skirts, commonly known as "grass dust clothes and grass dust skirts". Until now, fashionable and exquisite girls have tried to make a turquoise cloth to wear when they get married.

The dress of the old-school brides in northern Shaanxi is very funny. The bride who is going to get on the sedan chair is wearing red and green trousers, flower shoes and flowers, which is very charming. But the custom is to paint the bride's beautiful face dark with pot black, which is in sharp contrast to the beautifully dressed clothes. Superstition legend says that if you don't do this, the bride will be cut off by ghosts on the way to marriage.

After the brides in Huzhou and Anji, Zhejiang Province opened their faces at their parents' home, they specially burned a bath soup to give her a bath. After washing, put on all the clothes sent by the man's family from the inside out. Because of this, there is a local saying that "men catch people in the bathtub". In the old custom, the bride still wears a red robe with big sleeves, a belt around her waist and an evergreen tree on her back. Universal belief can prevent monsters from robbing the bride.