Tuesday 5 June 2012

Chinese Wedding Invitation Wording Template - How to Title Bride and Groom

Chinese Wedding Invitation Wording Template - How to Title Bride and Groom
When it comes to Chinese wordings for wedding invitations, a lot of people have no idea on where to start. Especially how to address oneself as 長男 // 男 // 男 //  小兒....
Here is an easy guidance to help you...
Traditional Chinese Wedding Invitations use a special format.
They are read from top to down, right to left.
They are also versed so that the bride and groom's parents are the official hosts.
Here is an example:


Take note of following etiquette: 
1. Specify the date of the wedding in both gregorian/solar and Chinese/lunar calendar form.

2. List the day of the week in parenthesis (this means curved brackets).
3. Precede the bride and groom's names with their birth order among siblings.
*** See below for more information on how to name the birth order
For example: Eldest son Second daughter Youngest son

4. The characters for "welcome" should be in larger font than rest of text.

***The above information was obtained from here

Ranking amongst Siblings - Here are some terms that are commonly used on Chinese wedding invitations:
小兒 : refers to the only child in the family 
小兒 : ALSO refers to Groom has no male siblings (can have sisters/ older or younger)
小女:  refers to the only child in the family 小女: ALSO refers to Bride who has no female siblings   (can have brothers/ older or younger)
男 // 男 // 男 : oldest son / 2nd son / youngest son // 次女 // 女 :oldest daughter / 2nd daughter / youngest daughter
For the Groom, he just need to arrange the sequence among himself and his brothers, and do not need to take into account of his sisters if he has any. This applies to the Bride too.
E.g. He is the oldest son, with 1 younger sister and 1 younger brother = 長
E.g. He is the only son, with 1 older sister = he will still be referred as 小兒 (do not take into account of sisters)

Hope this is clearer and hope you will find this useful!

Gregorian - Lunar Calendar Conversion Table of 2014 (Jia-wu yer of the Horse):
Please check out this link if you want to convert the Gregorian to Lunar dates for 2014

*** Please email me at info@kalomakeart.com if you would like a wedding invitation wording template guideline!

6 comments:

  1. Thank you so much, this was very helpful but I have a question about how to list my parents name on the invitation. I am the groom and my father is deceased. Should I leave his name out and my my mother's name up to show head of household?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, thanks a lot for this article. I was wondering if you would agree to provide the text of this invitation.
    Thanks a lot.

    On another topic, I am Belgian, my wife is Chinese and for some reason it feels like I am the one thinking "details" ... she is very detached and keeps saying "we chinese don't really care for details, we go see a planner, they propose stuff, we agree and pay and that's it" ... basically it seems that the only thing she cares about is her dress ... :D

    Finally we get to the invitations, I design my side, when it comes to her "let's contact a design agency" ...

    Any tips on that ?

    Thanks a lot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Silences,

      I guess most girls love their bridal gown :) Can you please email me at info@kalomakeart.com and I will reply with the Chinese wording template! Thanks! Hope you have a fun time at your wedding!

      Kalo

      Delete
  3. Hi,

    I really enjoyed this article and it was helpful as well. As we're planning our wedding, we are struggling to get the Chinese portion.. especially the date right. I was wondering if you can help us with the lunar date or calendar? If so, we would greatly appreciate it.

    Thanks in advance! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Nannerz! For the dates please check out this link
      http://www.hko.gov.hk/gts/time/calendar/pdf/2014e.pdf

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

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