Differences between Chinese and Japanese weddings? Please help!

In Japan, since the night before the wedding is the last night you can spend with your parents, the bride and groom usually spend time with their loved ones at their respective homes, and in order to prepare for the next day's wedding the bride and groom usually have to go to bed early. So it came as a huge surprise to me when I accepted an invitation from our school manager! She told me that she had many friends over to her house. It is said that when a wedding is held in Beijing, there are family members or friends called "best man" and "maid of honor" who help the bride and groom with wedding-related things. The "bridesmaids" stay at the bride's house the night before the wedding to help the bride decorate her new home and do other chores. While decorating the bed, the "bridesmaid" told me that it is a tradition that even the bride cannot use the bed because it is the new bed that the bride and groom will use tomorrow.

On the morning of the wedding, the groom went to the bride's house in an open car to pick up the bride, the groom's family did six Mercedes-Benz followed the bride's car. When the groom went into the bride's house and was ready to take the bride, the friends of the bride's family used many ways to stop the groom, which lasted about an hour or so. For example, when the groom tried to enter the bride's house, the bride's friends did not open the door for a very long time, and when the groom saw the bride, the bride's friends told the groom that the bride could not get out because she had no more shoes, etc. After that, the groom and the bride's family were greeting each other. As the sound of blocking the bride was very loud, so many neighbors who heard the sound also came to see the fun.

Finally the groom took the bride outside and then they left for the wedding venue in an open car. The groom and the bride's family and friends followed in a line of six Mercedes-Benzes each (I was in one car with the bride's friends). At this point I saw an SUV going in front of the bride and groom's car, with the back door of the car open and someone inside photographing. Sometimes this car was at the front, sometimes at the end. During this time the rest of the seven cars were driving so slowly that they were about to stop. I've seen car trains like this before. They were all beautifully decorated, too. In Japan, the bride and groom might also take a car to the wedding venue, but not like this.

Both weddings I've been to had a western part. Both weddings started the ceremony with the bride and groom taking their vows at the wedding venue by the bride's elders. While most weddings in Japan have a similar practice, generally in Japanese ceremonies, places like Christian churches have a priest administer the bride and groom's vows. Although the Christian church mentioned above was built next to the wedding venue specifically for weddings held there, and the priest seems to be a general foreigner wearing a priest's clothes, but as far as I can judge, compared to the Chinese, the Japanese Western-style practice is rather old-fashioned.

When the wedding started, I realized that the clothes of the people attending the wedding were very different from those in Japan. In Japan, it is a tradition for wedding attendees to wear black suits and white shirts with white ties. Although at the November wedding I attended, most people wore suits because the invitation I received before the wedding said "please wear formal clothes", at the June wedding I saw a lot of people dressed casually, and in particular I saw people wearing sweatshirts.

At the wedding, there were performances by the bride and groom's family members or friends, and the bride and groom went to the tables to say hello, etc., which I thought was similar to Japanese weddings. However, I was surprised by the formality of the end of the wedding. Before the bride and groom finished going to all the tables, some people started to leave the table. They nodded to the bride and groom as they headed out. In Japan, there is another important ceremony at the end of a wedding. This involves both the bride and groom and their parents standing horizontally in a line, and then the groom and his father successively paying their respects to those who attended the wedding. It is only after this ceremony that everyone begins to retire. From these differences, it can be seen that compared to Japanese weddings, Chinese weddings are less formal and more free. At the same time, in addition to the bride and groom, their families and friends share the joy of the wedding as well. I am not married yet, and when I want to get married, I would like to adopt part of the Chinese wedding form for a pleasant wedding.