Wedding season is in full swing here in China, and how lucky the brides and grooms. The degree of freedom they've enjoyed leading up to the nuptials would astound their forebearers. The biggest task they face is choosing the right Audi motorcade, and which "videographer" will hang drunkenly out of a van at the front.  If you can believe it, not so long ago in China the process leading up to the big day was fraught with a thousand potential landmines of propriety, abstraction, and inscrutable traditional processes, lumped into six general categories.

Na Cai

Also called Ti Qing, this custom refers to the groom's family sending gifts to the family of a prospective bride. One was a live swallow, symbol of seasonal harmony and right actions at the right time in the right place. The other gift was a bunch of lilies, expressing best wishes, good intentions. All but the thickest understood this complimentary math: swallow + lily = we want your nubile daughter to bear our fruit from her loins.

Wen Ming

The bride's family took little account of the potential for romance, let alone true love, in the offer. Most important was family reputation. A pawnbroker or failed exam candidate wouldn't affect matters too seriously, but what if they had a daughter who once smiled at an itinerant knife-sharpener  without covering her mouth?

 If there were no such stains on the family honor, the matchmaker would return to the groom's family to obtain personal astrological details and a full rendering of the family tree. Appropriate papers were necessary, containing everything from the family Abraham's hometown to the great-grandfather's honorable discharge from the emperor's army. The groom's family also demanded a complete reckoning of their prospective in-law's family history. They would send the matchmaker back to the bride-to-be's for the documents, along with another live swallow, just in case someone wasn't 100% clear on the harmony concept.

Na Ji

This step was a potential deal-breaker. Both families' papers were taken to a fortune teller. If the fortune teller decided the intendeds' stars didn't match, it was all over. No one would dare gainsay the wisdom of the cosmos, of which we are all such a tiny but hopefully harmonious part. Of course, small cogs can move big gears, with the right leverage. A new copper compass or free pass to Yang's House of Midnight Glory would go a long way to ensuring that the fortune teller was in a mood to see things auspiciously.

Remote villages might not have enjoyed a fortune teller within proximity, however, and some families may not have had the means to pay one. In this case, both of the intendeds' names were written on separate pieces of red paper, which were placed in two separate bowls, with copper coins to hold them down. Both bowls were set afloat in a large brass cauldron for the night. In the morning, if the two bowls were touching, the marriage was on. No doubt a much cheaper system to rig than buying off a fortune teller, even if it demanded getting up a little earlier than usual.

Na Zheng

The blessing of the fortune teller, or the touching of the bowls, gave the signal for the groom's family to prepare for some serious gift-giving, birds and flowers mere tokens. Embroidered blankets, silk fabric, jewelry, and a substantial cash "donation" were all requisite for a family in good standing with a marriageable boy. The groom's mother would deliver the goods to the bride herself, marking the first and last time a mother-in-law ever showed deference to her daughter-in-law. After that, the relationship usually took on more of an overseer-field hand dynamic than anything resembling a bond based on family ties.

This load of goods was not delivered in good faith, however; this was old China, not Peoria. The bridal gifts were followed by the Long Feng Tie, a marriage contract guaranteeing no Runaway Bride antics. After both fathers signed, backing out on either side would result in serious punitive damages and attendant loss of face.

Qing Qi

Also called Kan Rizi or "Looking at the Date", Qing Qi refers to the ceremony of picking the perfect day for the wedding. Chinese calendars today are so ignorant. The old ones advised people day-by-day on matters great and small, good days for planting and picking, bad days for lending or borrowing, and of course, when it was appropriate to get hitched. The venerable fortune teller's union had a lock on this ceremony as well, obligating the groom's family to pay one off to agree that the day chosen was auspicious, even though it plainly said so on the calendar.

Naturally the bride's family had a say in the matter. Although the punch-clock and paid-leave were concepts still far off, state rituals and provincial uprisings were both frequent affairs that took precedence even over weddings. There were other potential snafus: lunar years without a Lichun (start of spring) day were verboten for tying the knot. No wedding was possible in either bride or groom's animal year, and a death in either family would force at least a year's postponement.

Qing Ying

In ancient times, the wedding rule was "everyone except the emperor". In other words, only one man in the kingdom had his women sent to him, the rest had to make the pickup. Actually, this was the one step in the process suggestive of romance and respect, rather than business and superstition. On the day of the wedding, the groom would go to his bride's home to formally ask for her hand. Riding a horse, and surrounded by as much friendship and finery as possible, he could finally bask in the relief and pride of having procured a wife. At the bride's door, he would be met by at least one female relative belittling his appearance and demanding baksheesh to be allowed through the portal. So much for romance, but in China, desires made plain have always been met in kind.