Twiddling My Thumbs

Twiddling My Thumbs

December 14th, 2010 @ 4:41 pm by Mrs. French Toast
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Although we were able to wriggle ourselves out of a big fat Chinese wedding, Mr. French Toast and I will honor our Chinese roots with certain traditions of the culture by incorporating it into the planning, as well as the big day.

For starters, it was important that we choose an auspicious day for the wedding. In Chinese culture, when it comes to choosing a date, there are several routes to take:

1) Find a sifu (“master”—and no, not the Jackie Chan type of martial-arts master) in Hong Kong/China to choose it for us based on our birthdates, time of birth, zodiac sign, and our parents’ date of birth. I went to a wedding mall in Hong Kong that specializes in weddings, and one store quoted me HKD 600 (USD $78) to calculate a date for us based on the Chinese calendar.

Twiddling My Thumbs : wedding cultural pleasanton

Nope, not this “sifu.”

2) Purchase a Chinese almanac, called the “Tung Shing,” for that calendar year. The Tung Shing is also written by a renowned sifu. However, that would mean you’d have to wait until August 2010 to choose a date for 2011.

source

3) Go online and search “auspicious wedding dates 2011.″ Fast, easy, convenient, free—but not for everyone because different sites sometimes offer different advice.

Because Mr. French Toast and I had our parents’ blessing to choose any date we wanted, I turned to my trusty Google search and found this site.

And in true traveler fashion, we picked March because the months of February/March/April are generally a low-demand travel season, so we can look forward to long-term savings when it comes to the honeymoon and anniversary trips. It’s called planning ahead, I tell ya.

Mr. French Toast proposed in October 2009, so by the time March rolls around, our engagement length will be 16 months. Sometimes I just feel like I’m twiddling my thumbs waiting for the time to pass, but the lengthier engagement gives us a wee bit more flexibility in choosing vendors and saving money.

How did you and your FI select a wedding date? What were some factors that you took into consideration when choosing a date?

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17 Responses to “Twiddling My Thumbs”

Member

CorgiTales (message) 9,901 posts, Bee Keeper

I hate to tell you but that whole travel thing? Kind of the opposite actually. We’re getting married the last week of February and my initial thought was the same— who travels in Feb/March? Um… EVERYONE for spring break. We saw a few travel agents who told us the only time worse than March we could be trying to honeymoon is the week between Christmas and New Years.

12/14/10 @ 4:53 pm (reply)

Member

quidditchqueen (message) 78 posts, Worker bee

We chose our dating anniversary. Our wedding day will be our 6th anniversary.

12/14/10 @ 4:54 pm (reply)

Member

teacherandageek (message) 271 posts, Helper bee

I have a feeling that I will also be “twiddling my thumbs” when my long engagement comes around. We’re both in school and want to wait until I graduate (which is conveniently a year & half late) till we get married. You’re not the only one!

12/14/10 @ 4:54 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss French Toast (message) 288 posts, Helper bee

@CorgiTales - yikes, sorry to hear that your travel agent told you that! Feb/March/April/May are what we consider “low season” for international travel.. shoulda clarified that in the post
@quidditchqueen - cool! so you only need to remember 1 date!
@teacherandageek - I “twiddled my thumbs” for the past 13 months and now it’s time to put ‘em to work!

12/14/10 @ 5:44 pm (reply)

Guest

lol i used the “auspicious dates” website too to pick our wedding date!

12/14/10 @ 7:58 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Glasses (message) 2,741 posts, Sugar bee

This has me wondering if there are any ways to choose a wedding date the Japanese way. Our date was conveniently our anniversary and ample enough time from the time we immigrated back to America to put on a wedding!

12/14/10 @ 10:15 pm (reply)

Member

christalynn11 (message) 1,216 posts, Bumble bee

Our wedding day was the half-year of my parents’ wedding - they were married on April 22, we were married on October 22. They have been married 31.5 years

12/14/10 @ 10:21 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Cinnamon Bun (message) 1,100 posts, Bumble bee

Hm, according to that website, my wedding date is not auspicious… Oh well! We’ll make it auspicious!

12/14/10 @ 11:28 pm (reply)

Member

heleng5 (message) 15 posts, Newbee

Hi Miss French Toast, FI and I are Chinese too and we chose our wedding date (7/23/11) back in Dec 2009 using an online Tong Shing! This one –>
http://mindcity.sina.com.hk/MC-lunar/index.cgi

We weren’t sure how accurate that is but it turns out to be a pretty good day for marriage. I just returned from a trip to HK and I believe the mall that you’re referring to is “Kam Do” in Prince Edward?

I bought a ton of stuff back for the wedding from that mall, and I’m the most happy with my HKD 48 (USD 6?) veil! I didn’t wanna pay USD 100 or more for a piece of tulle!

12/14/10 @ 11:40 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Miss French Toast (message) 288 posts, Helper bee

@cinnamon buns - right on!
@heleng5 - I used the sina.com website to cross check the dates too! and yes, I am referring to Kam Do in Prince Edward. I was just there last week too!

12/15/10 @ 1:40 am (reply)

11.

Member

vtbride2010 (message) 152 posts, Blushing bee

For the past 11 years I have thrown myself a huge birthday bash on the Sunday of Memorial Day! All of my friends would come and camp out - it was always a huge success! My FI was very gung-ho when I mentioned having the wedding on the Sunday of Memorial Day! So that’s when it is! We get a discount because it is on a Sunday and all of my friends already have that day of the year saved for my party! It’s a win-win for most!

12/15/10 @ 8:33 am (reply)

12.

Member

elliestan (message) 3,251 posts, Sugar bee

WHEW!!! we’ve got an auspicious day! haha
FH and I met in China so we’re definitely going to have Chinese aspects in our wedding but I completely forgot about the auspiciousness factor when choosing! Luckily October’s a good month - I think like every Saturday is considered auspicious! I think I found it on the site posted above too, should it just say “宜 : 嫁娶” when you input the date (in a list with lots of other info) or is there some other more thorough auspiciousness meter on there? lol thanks!

12/15/10 @ 2:30 pm (reply)

13.

Bee

Miss French Toast (message) 288 posts, Helper bee

@elliestan - yep, you got it! as long as it has those chinese characters, it means you selected a good day.

12/15/10 @ 2:45 pm (reply)

14.

Member

elliestan (message) 3,251 posts, Sugar bee

@Miss French Toast: awesome, I figured since that was the only wedding related verbage but wasn’t sure… can’t wait to see how your wedding vision grows!

12/15/10 @ 3:21 pm (reply)

15.

Member

alivoo01 (message) 2,625 posts, Sugar bee

We went and bought a Tung Shing to choose our date!

12/15/10 @ 4:27 pm (reply)

16.

Bee

Mrs. Husky (message) 1,754 posts, Buzzing bee

What wonderful planning to have a wedding in low demand travel months! I can honestly say that thought never even occurred to me…

12/15/10 @ 5:14 pm (reply)

17.

Bee

Mrs. Hot Cocoa (message) 2,077 posts, Buzzing bee

That’s awesome that your parents just let you choose your date on your own. You will not believe the ridiculousness we went through to find a date suitable for my mom: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/11/10/auspicious-date/

12/16/10 @ 6:15 pm (reply)