- Wedding emcee ignores bride and sings praises of what she refers to as a ‘swan’ as the contraption ‘flies’ into ballroom
- Added disco lights turn bizarre marriage celebration into surreal event which social media observers have described as ‘so tacky’
A bizarre Chinese wedding ceremony, in which the bride entered the banquet ballroom riding on a giant mechanical goose, has amused many on mainland social media.
Instead of walking into the hall on a red carpet like most brides do on their big day, the woman in northern China’s Hebei province made her unforgettable entrance standing on the back of a mechanical flying goose.
As the contraption, or “swan” as the wedding emcee described it, “flew” into the wedding ballroom on a sliding rail built into the ceiling, with disco lights flashing all around, it was hardly surprising that it grabbed the attention of the guests.
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The goose, draped in a big red silk flower to denote happiness, gently “flapped” its wings as it carried the bride towards the groom.
Instead of introducing the newlyweds, the emcee spent the bride’s whole journey extolling the virtues of the “swan”.
“Legend has it that the swan is a symbol of loyalty and eternal love, a symbol of peace and kindness, honesty and bravery, and great ambitions,” the emcee said.
“It has been called ‘the angel of beauty and kindness’ since ancient times,” she went on, inviting the guests to take photos of the “swan”.
The stunned wedding photographer, surnamed Qin, who took the video on February 15, said the machine is a special feature of the venue.
Online observers reacted to the wedding ceremony with humour.
“It’s so tacky. If my wedding was like this, my friends would laugh at me for the rest of my life,” said one.
“I wonder how they talked the bride into it?” asked another.
A third cited a Chinese proverb, joking: “A toad wishes to eat a swan”, which is commonly used to ridicule people who desire a partner seen as too good for them. “Is the groom riding a toad on the other side of the hall?” she added.
This is not the first awkwardly innovative wedding ceremony to make headlines in China.
In January, a wedding ceremony in eastern China’s Jiangsu province invited a street performer to throw axes at a guest, shocking many online.
In 2016, two enthusiastic animal-lovers exchanged a pair of albino Burmese pythons as love tokens on their wedding day, then posed for photos with the pythons around their necks in northeastern China’s Jilin province.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
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