Wedding Gift Gaffe

Over the weekend, I went to my first Chinese wedding. To prepare for the wedding, I picked out my outfit, bought a card, and visited the ATM for the gift.

At the wedding, I approached the gift table with my card/cash gift. At the table, I gave the card, in an envelope, to an attendant and signed my name in the guestbook. As I walked away, I noticed that the woman looked extremely confused. I saw her staring at my card, with a perplexed expression. Then, she put my card over to the side and got the attention of the woman next to her. She showed the woman my card and they both stared at the envelope and examined it, confusedly. This went one for a few minutes. They finally shook their heads and put the card into a box full of other envelopes. This is when I realized what confused the women.

At all weddings, it is expected that you will bring a gift. In China, the gift is almost always cash. That cash is supposed is to be placed in a red envelope and given to the people at the gift table. Every single other guest of the wedding brought a red envelope with cash in it. I am the only guest who brought a regular greeting card in a non-red envelope. All of the other envelopes were small, rectangular, and bright red. My card was in a large, square, shimmery off-white envelope. It really stood out.

When I bought the card, I knew that Chinese people use the red envelopes to give gifts of money for Spring Festival. I also thought they might be used for weddings but, I didn’t realize just how ubiquitous they were.

Now I know that if I go to another Chinese wedding, I should use a red envelope. FYI, if you ever got to a Chinese funeral, bring a cash donation in a white envelope. This is because white is the color of mourning and red is a happy color.

All of the other gift envelopes looked something like this.

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Photo: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/quizzes/2013/07/130718_royal_baby_quiz.shtml