Sanni and Qi Jinzhou's new house had been built long ago, right next to the Ma family's old house, on the easternmost side. It was now covered with red wedding characters inside and out.
New cabinets, new beds, new quilts, new washstands, new tables and new chairs were all placed inside, waiting for the newcomers to move in.
Chen Chunhua and Wang Jingui were invited to help make the new bed. They were both considered lucky women in the village, with both sons and daughters who were promising, successful careers and happy families.
Especially Chen Chunhua, everyone can see her development momentum in the past two years. Asking her to help make the bed is really a good omen.
After laying out the new sheets and quilt, an even number of lotus seeds, an even number of peanuts, and an even number of red dates should be placed under the bedspread. These are for the couple to use as mattress support on their wedding day.
Before making the bed, two red envelopes were placed on the quilt, each containing six yuan and sixty-six yuan. They were for the lucky woman, and she couldn't refuse them, so she had to accept them. Chen Chunhua turned around and asked Lin Guoqing to include the money in the red envelopes.
On the day of the wedding, the Ma family's yard, which had been forced to expand, was already filled with round tables, stools, bowls and chopsticks borrowed from each household, and thermoses, all with the name of the owner of each household written on them, all neatly helping out in the yard.
Since he is a son-in-law, the roles are reversed. Qi Jinzhou "marries" Sanni, and Sanni has to go to the city to pick him up and bring him to Sihe Village for the wedding.
The journey from the city to Sihe Village was too far. Unlike Da Ni and Er Ni who went to the next village and walked there in a sedan chair, San Ni went there by boat.
The traditional custom for weddings and funerals here is to welcome the bride at night. The bride and groom arrange a list of wedding attendees, write them down on red paper according to their zodiac signs, and post them on the wall for public display. Those whose zodiac signs conflict with those of the bride and groom are not included in the wedding list.
The wedding procession will include bridesmaids and old ladies, who are also called matchmakers; grandfathers, who are prestigious elders with children and grandchildren, whose duty is to carry the "descendants' lanterns"; those who carry the sedan chair, hold the handles, and beat the gongs, who are at least 16 people and at most 28 people, collectively known as "xinglang".
The wedding procession usually sets out after dinner on the day before the wedding. If the distance is dozens of miles away, they have to set out after lunch. It is already dusk when they arrive at the other party's house, so they have dinner at the other party's house, which is called "Xinglang Wine".
After the Xinglang wine drinking, the Xinglang beats gongs and drums to urge the bride to get into the sedan chair. After the gongs are beaten three times, the Xinglang eats dumplings, which means the bride can get into the sedan chair.
After the meal, the bride, supported by her husband, uncle, bridesmaids, relatives and friends, is escorted into the bridal sedan chair. Four sedan bearers proudly carry the sedan chair towards the riverbank and park it securely in the middle cabin of the boat. The groom then waves goodbye to the people on shore.
The wedding sedan boat moves steadily along the way, with drummers playing all the way, and the suona playing festive tunes. Whenever the sedan boat passes through a bridge, guns and cannons are fired to ward off evil spirits.
Well, when we got back to the starting point, it was probably midnight.
In the middle of the night, the groom's family would fire cannons and play music, and all relatives and friends would gather at the shore to welcome the bride. After the sedan chair was carried to the living room, they would wait until the wedding time arrived. Two children would hold candlesticks, light red candles, and welcome the bride out of the sedan chair, and then a series of rituals of worship would be performed.
And the ceremony doesn't end after the wedding ceremony and the wedding chamber. After the bride and groom sit side by side on the bridal chamber bed and eat glutinous rice balls, the groom must leave the bridal chamber. That night, the bride, bridesmaids, and bridesmaids sleep together in the bridal chamber, while the groom sleeps separately.
When daybreak arrives, the groom's family will hold a wedding banquet, where the bride and groom will toast to their elders, relatives, and friends. After the banquet, they will do some housework, and only after dinner at the end of the day can the bride and groom sleep together.
It's like getting married, and you have to endure almost two days and one night, which is really too torturous.
In the past, people would choose to get married during the slack season because they could go home and sleep the next day. But now, many people have to go to work, and no one can stay with them like this.
Furthermore, Qi Jinzhou was the only one at home. Even if the uncles from the factory came to help him prepare the banquet, it would be very troublesome to hold a banquet in that small 70-square-meter house.
So Sanni asked to change the rule. She set out to pick people up at dawn. The round trip would take about 5 hours in total. Even if she stayed at Qi Jinzhou's house for a while, it would take 7 hours to return to Sihe Village, which would be around 10 o'clock.
It was a Thursday, and except for those who were there to pick up the bride and groom and send them off, many people who came to the wedding had to go to work. So they had a simple meal at noon and the wedding banquet was held in the evening. After the meal, the bride and groom went into the bridal chamber, and everyone else went back to their homes and their mothers.
Originally, they were welcoming a son-in-law, which was a little different from an ordinary wedding, so this proposal was well accepted and adopted.
The main reason may be that everyone has suffered from tradition for too long.
At three o'clock in the morning, Sanni set off from the riverside of Sihe Village with people and boats.
Wu Ni took a special leave to attend her third sister's wedding, and she and Sini served as bridesmaids.
The old lady asked Cai Yinling and Lao Shi's wife to take her place. The grandparents were Master Jia and Chen Jinshui. The sedan chair bearers were usually older brothers, so Lin Shu could have caught up, but today it was the groom, not the bride, so young boys aged fourteen or fifteen were passed over.
The sedan chair bearers were Sanni's two brothers-in-law, Qi Jinzhou's side, Master Zhang's son, and another uncle's son from the factory. They and Lao Shi's wife all came together after dinner the day before.
In addition, those who hold up the handles and beat the gongs are all young people from the village. Together with the boatman and the bride, there are a total of 22 people.
Yue City is a water network area. Before the 1990s, the main means of transportation for weddings in urban and rural areas was boats. The boat the bride took was generally called a "sedan boat", and the other was a "drummer boat", which was specially used for people who played music. Both wedding boats needed to have canopies, and several pairs of red and green couplets in even numbers were posted on the canopies.
Behind them were 6 more small boats for picking up the bride, a total of 8 boats, and they had to be an even number.
Liang Shengdi had originally wanted to offer her own small boat, but the others discussing the marriage complained that it was too small. A sedan boat would have to accommodate at least six people, and the boat carrying the bride would have to accommodate not only people but also the groom's dowry! It would be best to remove the canopy.
Liang Shengdi’s boat is really not good enough, so let’s just go play somewhere else.
Finally, we all asked Xixing to rent a boat. As long as the money was in place, Xixing could provide a one-stop service for the sedan chair boat.
On the other side, Qi Jinzhou was also ready, just waiting for his wife to pick him up.
Some young people in the factory were a little hesitant at first because Qi Jinzhou was a son-in-law and had some issues. Their parents had warned them not to talk nonsense for fear of hurting Qi Jinzhou's self-esteem.
As a result, Comrade Xiao Qi seemed to have no such idea at all, and all he said was—
I'm getting married today.
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Please allow me to take a day off. Today I will update
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