How much time to allocate for the tea ceremony?
Hi everyone! We’re planning a multicultural wedding and could use some advice from people who’ve had or attended Taiwanese/Chinese tea ceremonies.
We are Taiwanese and Indian couple, and we’re trying to figure out what makes the most sense for our ceremony. The Indian side of the family is significantly larger than the Taiwanese side.
Right now, we’ve identified about 11–13 couples (parents, aunts, and uncles) that we could potentially honor with tea. My questions are:
- How long would a tea ceremony with 11–13 couples typically take?
- Is that too many people, or is it fairly common?
- Are we thinking about this the wrong way? Is it expected that we include all aunts and uncles, or is it perfectly acceptable to only serve tea to our parents (and maybe grandparents)?
- If you had a large extended family, how did you decide who to include without hurting anyone’s feelings?
- For those who had multicultural weddings, did you modify the tea ceremony to fit your families, or did you stick closely to tradition?
We’re trying to balance honoring tradition with keeping the ceremony meaningful and not making it overly long.
I’d love to hear what you did, how many people you included, how long it took, and if there’s anything you wish you’d done differently. Thanks!