Trip to China Part I: Jenny & Erik's Wedding

This is the first in a three-part series of photos from our trip to China in December. 

It's finally time to blog about the trip to China! I really can't put into words how amazing the trip was, so I'm hoping the photos can do that for me. I'll share photos from the wedding first, tourism and scenery of Shenzhen next, and Hong Kong last, so stay tuned. :)

A little background: My fiance's brother, Erik, and his wife Jenny had their American wedding in July 2015. This trip was to celebrate their marriage in Jenny's home country with all of her family and their friends! 

We flew into China on Dec. 15 -- which means we got there the evening of Dec. 16! It was nice to have a buffer day between getting to China and the wedding, though the jet lag was there for at least three days. I didn't use my camera at all in China until the day of the wedding, so it was fun to get to test my settings and play with the camera at such a cool event! 

Getting ready

The morning of the wedding, we all dressed up and took family photos in a local park. I got my hair and makeup done for the first time, it was so relaxing! I can't wait to see the photos at the park from the professional photographers! Check out my dress and up-do:

My Chinese dress for the day!

Jenny's mom Shihuan kindly paid for this dress rental. I love the blue and white!

Up-do!

Hair crimped for the first time in quite a while. I will say, it does add a lot of grip!

Lookin' good hun!

Socks cleans up well in his tux.

The Reception

After family photos, we went back to our hotel, changed into more comfortable clothing, packed for the night and headed out to the other hotel and banquet hall. By the time we got there, I only had about half an hour to lay down until the tea ceremony was starting! It was a whirlwind of a day, but so worth it! Here's what the reception space looked like:

The Howard men before the festivities begin!

The lighting crew working on final touches.

A tablescape in the banquet hall!

Look at that marquee stage!

Cocktail hour space, filled with dessert and decor.

This table, filled with desserts, was likely just for decoration. The Chinese aren't huge fans of sweets!

There were LOTS of photos from their American wedding!

Before the reception began, Erik and Jenny had a traditional tea ceremony.

Receiving a gift from Jenny's grandmother.

Love this! You can also see more of Jenny's traditional Chinese two-piece outfit.

This is a false cake that the bride and groom cut together with a huge sword!

Our table!

The presentation of food was incredible. I wish I took a shot of the whole pig with blinking red lights as eyes!

Grant loved the kobe beef!

Yum!

More of the food, including fried rice *thumbs up emoji*

Socks riding a lobster. Don't worry, this was after the reception had ended :) 

Wheeeee!

As a special treat for making it this far in my post, enjoy this raw video of Erik's entrance into the reception. You can tell that they were really committed to the Shanghai theme! 

Thanks for reading!! Parts II and III will be coming down the pipeline soon :)