By Van Anh Nguyen

Summer is coming and it is great time for a colorful wedding. Are you curious about Asian wedding? In this article we are going to visit a Vietnamese traditional wedding which is influenced from Confucian and Buddhist ideologies.

Wedding celebrations in Vietnam and in Europe are very different as their cultures. Although was born here and growing up here but Vietnamese in Hungary still keep the culture nowadays.

There are 3 important processes in traditional wedding:

1.      Formal meeting between parents of Bride and Groom:

This meeting will go first in the timeline which is the simplest process in those three. Meanwhile Groom’s parents bring normal gifts such as fruit, candy, and cake to Bride’s parents. Content of the meeting is asking permission of Bride’s parents to let them be together as wife and husband, also discuss the suitable date, type and number formal gifts that Groom’s parents and relative have to bring on engagement date. Gifts for this day must be even number.

2.      Engagement

In the engagement date, Groom’s family will bring gifts as Bride’s parents request in the formal meeting.  Those gifts must be odd - 5, 7, 9 big plates normally include: Trau Cau (traditional leaf and fruit only use for engagement), alcohol – could be wine, champagne, beer or strong alcohol; tobaccos; tea; 2 typical cakes – green and red color; fruits; cooked sticky rice; a grilled or boiled whole piggy, etc.

Those gifts will be brought by 5, 7, 9 young unmarried guys from Groom’s family and will be taken by 5, 7, 9 young unmarried girls from Bride’s family. All of them will wear traditional clothes and each team’s members’ clothes have definitely same color: red for girls, white shirt with tie and dark trousers for guys. After giving gifts to Bride’s family, both 2 teams will receive money under a red envelope from Gloom and Bride’s family.

3.      Wedding celebration

The main celebration will be another day or the same day at hotel or restaurant where they are announced to be husband and wife, drinking and eating with family, and friends. They do not go to the church for wedding.

Although living in a European country, but Vietnamese community still remains the traditional wedding and bring it to Hungarian culture. More and more Hungarians get to know, then really enjoy this new wedding style for them when they join the event.

And here are two videos from the US: