Wearing Black to a Wedding?
I’ve always been told to not wear black (or dressed completely in black) to a wedding, especially to an Asian wedding because the colour black is often seen as black luck. However I have seen people wear black clothing to Chinese wedding so I’m just wondering when it’d be appropriate to wear it.
When I went to my friends wedding in Las Vegas, a lot of people wore black (especially people in their 20’s – 30’s). The couple getting married are Chinese. I thought since it was at a more western setting it’d be alright to wear black. Now would it be alright to wear black to a Chinese banquet? What about a wedding at a golf club?
The reason why I’m asking is because I’ll be attending a wedding at a golf course in September and I’ve been asked to be the MC. The couple are both Chinese but is not holding a traditional wedding (no tea ceremony either). With this in mind, I thought it’d be alright to wear my black dress as the MC outfit. What do you think? I don’t own a lot of dresses, my other choices are 1) a long dress in dark green/brown (has some sort of pattern) with a very deep V neckline, and 2) a cocktail dress in gold/copper colour. The cocktail dress is definitely out of the question because I personally find it to be super short and with these two dresses, I’d need to wear my heels which would put me significantly taller than the male MC.
Final thoughts on wearing black at weddings: Men can wear black suits, so it should be alright for women to wear black dresses to weddings. Right?
Would love to hear your thoughts on wearing black to a wedding?
Fortune House Restaurant – Banquet Setup Sample
Al and I had a chance to visit Fortune House Restaurant as they prepare for an evening wedding banquet to take a look at what the table settings look like and get a feel for what it’d be like for our wedding. For our set up, we had wanted to use the long head table for the wedding party and our parents will be setting at separate tables with our immediate family. The banquet they were setting up that day had use the same table cloth/skirt colour scheme as us, which is red for the head table, white for the guest tables and gold for the napkins.
-Looking at the head table from the back of the room (bar area).
The two tables in red table cloth are the ones for the parents. For ours we’re thinking of using pink (still undecided because I don’t think the pink look nice) so it doesn’t look like we have a lot of red. There is a screen directly behind the head table, I’d prefer to not show that screen because it hides the dragon and phoenix decorations. There’s actually another set of dragon and phoenix decoration on the wall at the far end (in the photo it’d be to the right side). It’s another possible location for the head table. They’ve set up the podium on the left (it’s hard to see but it’s on the left edge of the photo) and a round cake table on the right. I forgot to take a picture of the whole banquet hall but if I remember correctly there were two projector screens and two TVs for you to show videos and slideshows.
-Closer look at the head table.
I was told by the coordinator that they are ordering new table skirts and one other thing (maybe chair covers or table cloth?) from China. I’m hoping it’d be gold which they used to have for chair covers. It looked really nice with the red. The restaurant will provide chair covers but only in one colour. If you’d like it in other colours they will help you place the rental order.
-Decoration for the bride & groom glasses.
They used some napkins to decorate the bride & groom’s spot at the head table. From afar it looked like two birds. It’s cute. Also in this picture you can also see that there are patterns on the table cloth.
-One of the napkin style they use for the table setting.
The coordinator told us they can fold the napkins a few different ways and we picked the butterfly (or bow) style in the above picture where a napkin ring is used. I think it looks better than the stand up triangle style or the one where it looked like a cone standing up. Plus I can nest the wedding favor right on the napkin. I just noticed that they used tall glasses instead of wine glasses at the table. I’ll have to ask if they have enough wine glasses because I’d prefer using those instead. It makes the table setting look more elegant in my opinion.
Fortune House Seafood Restaurant
After looking around for a restaurant that we like and can fit all our guests (currently at 210), Al and I decided to have our wedding banquet at the Fortune House Seafood Restaurant for two reasons aside from the quality of the food,service and the size of the restaurant:
1). It comes with plenty of FREE parking (I don’t want guests to pay for parking or have to drive around in circles looking for one)
2). The location is central and well known for almost all our guests
Fortune House has been around for as long as I can remember since I moved to Vancouver. I’ve had dim sum and a few dinners there before but had never been there for a banquet. From what I can see in their menu, the food is pretty similar to wedding banquet menus offered at other restaurants, the only difference is really just the price and maybe a couple of ingredients in the dishes. The restaurant can hold up to 28 tables, but they suggest a maximum of 26 without a dance floor so it doesn’t feel too cramped for your guests. That’s approximately 260 guests.
What I find different about Fortune House that I have yet to see from other restaurants that I’ve visited, is that they offer additional discounts for wedding related needs. Aside from receiving a Fortune Gold Card for discount at dining at Fortune House Restaurant, if you have 15 tables (about 150 people) or more, you can get the following:
- Wine Ordering Service – I’ve enquired about this and was told that basically it’s cheaper to order it ourselves instead of going through the restaurant. It’s really meant for people who either don’t want to deal with ordering their own wine or doesn’t know what they want and just want it taken care of.
- Complimentary Seat Covers for Head Table - the coordinator told me he can also help me rent them for cheap if want them in a different colour or if I want every chair to have chair covers
- Discount at Maxim’s Bakery (Metrotown location only) – the discount applies to wedding cakes as well as wedding pastry cards (which is giving out by the bride’s parents to relatives and friends)
- Discount on Wedding Photo Shoots – did not enquire about this but I will ask next time I meet with the coordinator
- Discount on Cooking Classes at Taam’s Economic Home Center - I’ve seen Mrs. Taam on TV but didn’t know she teaches cooking classes. Here’s her bio.
If you reserve the whole restaurant, you’ll get these as additional to the above:
- One night accommodation at Hilton Vancouver Metrotown – which is almost right next door
- A poster made from one of your pre-wedding photos – basically they will enlarge one of your pre-wedding photos into 16 x 24′ and frame it for use on the day of the wedding.
Fortune House also provides a small selection of different colour/texture table clothes and napkins for you to choose from. They will also fold your napkins the way you want it. Al and I decided to have ours folded like a bow with the use of a napkin ring. I was told that there’s a wedding in August that have a very similar set up as ours and the coordinator had invited us to drop by the restaurant in the afternoon to see how it’s set up so we can get a better idea on the layout and the table settings. Can’t wait to see how it’d look like so I can decide if I’ll need center pieces on guest tables and flower decorations for the head table.
