Weddingbee Blog

In many Chinese-American weddings, brides change into a traditional Chinese dress called a qi pao (pronounced chi-pow). First off, it’s a beautiful, but unforgiving dress. Here are a few images I found on the web:

(source)

(source)

In my mind, it’s most traditionally worn in red with gold shoes, both colors associated with good luck. Well, I’ve never been much of a traditionalist so I didn’t want to wear a qi pao. After all, my wedding dress was the most expensive dress I’d ever bought and I did love it ever so much, so why would I change out of it?! Nevertheless, being a good daughter, I asked my Mom if she wanted me to partake in this tradition. She said that I didn’t need to do it if I didn’t want to. Just to be sure, a couple months later, I asked her again because it would take a couple months to have a qi pao made for me. She said no again. Since I had asked twice, I decided she was sure.

Two weeks before the wedding, we were out shopping for accessories for her outfit for the wedding and as we were walking through the mall she said, “So, don’t you think you should do a dress change?”

*insert record scratch here*

It was two weeks before the wedding, I had checked twice and NOW she was asking for a dress change?! We both agreed that there’d be no time to get a qi pao made so she suggested a “normal” special occasion dress as my change. I agreed, and we began looking. As we walked through the mall, I tried on various dresses in ivory, white and green, our wedding colors, but couldn’t find anything I liked. The next day, I said that if I couldn’t find a dress, we’d forget the whole idea. We headed to another mall and I tried on every white, ivory and green dress I could lay my hands on. I decided another color wouldn’t really match. But then, with an armful of dresses, I found a reddish pink dress and fell in love!

I took it along with me to the dressing room and saved it for last. Every dress was a no until I changed into the little red number. Through the dressing room door, I said, “Mom, it’s not the right color. If they only had it in white or something, I think I’d buy this dress!” I opened the door and she said, “it’s perfect! It’s RED! You can wear this red dress instead of a red qi pao!” It turned out to be perfect compromise for my mom and me. Red for my mom and gorgeous for me!

So, here it is, my red dress change remixed –

All photos courtesy of Hanssie Trainor.

Are you planning on changing into something else during your reception?

Missed something?

• We go to the happiest place on Earth.
• I get all dolled up
• Mr. Lace and I get a peep of each other.
• We had awesome music.
• We took photos.
• We get married!
• We write. We fight. We say our vows.
• Big surprise…I cry.
• We are photo crazed.
• Say cheese!
• I’m obsessed with details.
• Feeling toasty?
• Traditional surprises?