How to change the marriage customs reform? Two young men made a sweet try
Their "live wedding" is too sweet and so good
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Li Li
"We are the'old couple' who have known each other for 7 years, been together for 6 years, and got married for nearly 3 years. We want to have an interesting, meaningful and impressive wedding." One day in August 2021 , Chao Chao and Yi Wei announced on their long-awaited personal WeChat official account that they decided to hold a "live broadcast wedding."
At 14:00 on August 8, the wedding was held in Wuhou District, Chengdu, one of the experimental areas for the reform of marriage customs in the country, and it was officially opened to the relatives and friends of the two newcomers and unacquainted netizens through the WeChat video account.
There was no grand dress, no parent speeches. In this 1 hour and 20 minute ceremony, Chao Chao Yiwei and their friends read five "love letters" to the live footage, drew four rounds of prizes, and cried a lot. Times, laughed countless times.
A total of more than 3,000 people watched the ceremony online. People said in the barrage that "beautiful" "is another day to weep for someone else's love" and "I believe in marriage again".
On August 8, a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News directly attacked the online wedding and interviewed the two "protagonists", 28-year-old Chao Chao and Yi Wei, exclusively before and after the wedding.
Wedding
Read a "love letter" to you far away
"Hello everyone, and welcome everyone to my wedding with Yi Wei. If you see friends, please call '1'!" Chao Chao and Yi Wei appeared on the live video screen at 14:00 on the wedding day.
Chao Chao is wearing a blue shirt, Yi Wei is wearing a white shirt skirt, and a small veil is pinned behind his head.
After a brief introduction and greeting, the two invited a friend from the court to "play."
This friend was responsible for reading aloud the first "love letter" of the day-written by Wang Xiaobo to Li Yinhe.
What the letter describes is the sweetness and beauty of love at the beginning: "I am very happy now, because you are so nice and like me, I hope I am happy, and I like to tell me anything." "I and you are like two A little child, surrounded by a mysterious jam jar, tasting it bit by bit to see how sweet it is." "Love is so beautiful, but unfortunately we can never love enough. I really don’t know what evil I have done in the past. Being punished heavily by this, it hurts you."
But the next two "love letters" were not so "sweet".
A good friend of Yiwei in Taipei read a speech by Lin Yihan, the author of "Fang Siqi's First Love Paradise", at his wedding, and Yiwei's aunt, who is a university teacher, read aloud the 2007 French Gong Gu by Bridget Giro An excerpt from the "Love Is Not So Beautiful", the winner of the Ernest Short Story Award.
Yiwei and Chaochao explained that they chose these to share with everyone because they believe that "wedding is happy, but life is more than just beautiful."
The climax of the wedding was when the two read aloud the "love letters" they wrote to each other.
Yiwei used "big data" to analyze the text of the online conversations that he had fallen in love with Chaochao for so many years, amused the audience watching the live broadcast, and moved Chaochao to cry: "We said 781 times'OK. ', more than I said in the work group." "We also said 250 times'sorry' between us, most of which you said to me. But you also said'I'm not sorry to you' many times!"" We also said 434 times "love you" and 421 times "miss you."" "I am very happy to live with you and complete the small matter of wedding together, so I plan to say "love you" to you for the 435th time. Chaochao’s "love letter" coincidentally used the technique of "repress first and then raise", and charged Yiwei with "I really hate you": "Every time you go to the mall, you are alone. Chong, I can’t find you when I return to a job WeChat; I can’t get through when the phone is muted, and finally I want to send Moments to find you; I go home and drive to pick you up every day, and you’ll get angry if you are a few minutes late... In this way, I'm still with a heinous villain like you." At the end of the reading, the two cried and laughed, wiping away tears and reflecting on themselves: "We are so unprofessional!"
On this day, in addition to the presence of the two relatives, relatives and friends from all over the country "attended" Yiwei and Chaochao's wedding through live broadcast. In addition, many friends from overseas watched the live broadcast with a few hours of jet lag.
Others are "friends of friends" attracted by recommendations from friends in the circle of friends-there are two IDs that won a lottery in the live broadcast. Chao Chao and Yi Wei did not know each other, but the two generously said: "Welcome! "
Behind the scenes of the wedding
Build a group before the live broadcast, after the live broadcast, "after-sales"
The offline venue of the wedding was Yiwei Bookshop in Chengdu.
Chao Chao said that he chose the bookstore because both of them love to read, and the bookstore’s name happens to be the same as the bride’s name.
The theme of the wedding is "love letters". This is because the two have written many love letters to each other since they fell in love. In addition, they also want to use this theme to express their views on marriage and love.
It is worth mentioning that many on-site decorations and souvenirs in the live draw were designed by the bride Yiwei.
"In fact, we have always wanted to have a wedding." Chao Chao said that the earliest idea was born in 2015. At that time, the two had just fallen in love and had begun to worry about the long-distance relationship.
One night, Chao Chao dreamed that he had returned to Chengdu from Beijing and handed Yiwei a bank card and said, "There are 600,000 in it, let's get married." Yiwei in the dream carefully accepted the bank card and said Give this money to mom and ask her to help them buy a house.
At the end of 2018, Yiwei and Chaochao officially received the certificate, and Chaochao returned to Chengdu from Beijing.
He didn't earn the "600,000" in his dream. Instead, Yiwei's mother generously contributed the money and helped them to make up the down payment for the house.
After that, the two experienced their own change of jobs, decoration, and adaptation to the pace of life in Chengdu... Coupled with the subsequent epidemic, the wedding that was originally planned to be held has been postponed repeatedly.
During this period, the two had imagined countless times "what kind of wedding do they want", and finally they found that the wedding they wanted most was: minimalist, (as far as possible) not wasteful; interactive communication, like a gathering of friends It can be remembered by myself and remembered by friends many years later.
Traditional weddings seem to be unable to fully meet these needs, so they decided that it is better to have an online wedding.
By the way, the form of live broadcast also allows their friends everywhere to participate in important moments of their lives without pressure.
In order to make the live broadcast smoother on the day, the two also established a WeChat group in advance. The "Wedding Reception" in the group is specifically responsible for answering and solving the problems encountered in the live broadcast.
A couple of newlyweds in the group made an appointment with everyone as early as the "rules" for "attending" the wedding that day: Don't call the groom towards Chaochao, because his mobile phone will be used for live broadcast; if you don't advocate gifting, you must do so. Please don't exceed 10 yuan; it is the first time to do "Live Wedding", please understand if there is a problem.
In fact, there was a little problem in the live broadcast-when connecting with friends in Taipei, Yiwei and Chaochao of Chengdu's "home court" were unskilled in operation and the microphones were muted.
For a time, everyone in the live broadcast room rushed to "Sister Li (Understanding) Long Live".
The "after-sales service" of this "live wedding" is also perfect.
After the wedding, the group sent photos of the scene one after another. The "Wedding Reception" recorded the addresses of the winning friends and prepared to send the prizes; Chaochao and Yiwei's public account also promptly announced the book lists and songs read and the lottery on the day of the wedding. Single-especially the book list, this is what many people want the first time they "attend" this wedding.
dialogue
I think the online method is very cool and environmentally friendly
Yangcheng Evening News: First introduce yourself!
Chaochao: We are both 28 years old this year, from Chengdu.
I am engaged in new media operations in a company, and Yiwei works in a public institution.
We have known each other for 7 years, have been in love for 6 years, and obtained the certificate for 3 years.
Originally planned to have the wedding earlier, but it was delayed because of various trivial things.
Last year, the epidemic was unsuccessful.
Why do weddings online?
Yangcheng Evening News: Some people may not do it, why do you two insist on doing it?
Yiwei: Four reasons.
One is that human beings need a sense of ritual, and we can't avoid it; the second is that a wedding allows us to cooperate and accomplish one thing together; the third is that we have to do all kinds of big and small things in a wedding, which is a challenge to jump out of our comfort zone; Important, because we thought of some interesting ideas.
Yangcheng Evening News: Do you think you need to pass a wedding to test your ability to cooperate?
Chao Chao: Indeed, I originally had certain doubts about our ability to accomplish one thing together.
Yiwei: We used to have disputes, and we wanted to blame each other if we didn't do a good job.
Therefore, we feel that it is better to do one thing together to break in.
Yangcheng Evening News: How did you come up with the idea of "Live the Wedding"?
Yi Wei: We may not have thought of having a very traditional wedding from the beginning. When I was in college, I saw other people getting married and actually wanted to pick up relatives and make trouble in the bridal chamber. I was frightened.
I once thought that this must be the way to get married, but later I realized that it was not.
Later, due to the epidemic, as well as laziness and poverty, the offline venue has not been determined. We suddenly thought that maybe we could have a "live wedding".
The friends we know may not all be in Chengdu, so it is convenient for them to participate.
Chao Chao: We also think the online approach is cool, environmentally friendly, and in line with the new marriage customs advocated by the country.
In the past two years, the live broadcast platform has become more and more convenient, and the emergence of new technologies has also allowed us to have new choices.
Why choose to read the "love letter"?
Yangcheng Evening News: How did the theme of "love letters" come about?
Chao Chao: I thought of it at first.
Because love letters are very important in our story.
For example, in the past when we were in different places, I bought her a thermal printer, and she would see what I wanted to say to her when she got up in the morning.
In addition, we refer to programs such as "Seeing Words as Faces" and transplant the reading elements into our wedding.
Yangcheng Evening News: The souvenir for everyone this time is a set of board games. Did you make it yourself?
Chao Chao: I had a dream of being a board game designer when I was in high school, but I never completed a complete board game by myself.
This time our board game first borrowed the creativity of a foreign designer, and then we replaced the character with a character from our favorite Hong Kong drama "Margaret and David".
The characters were all hand-painted by Yiwei, and then we went to find a place to print it out.
Yangcheng Evening News: I saw on your public account that the two of you also took a very romantic and happy trailer for the wedding.
Yi Wei: Yes, we modeled a Japanese variety show "Want to Talk about an Idol Drama-like Love", which happened to be seen last month, and we both liked it very much.
Yangcheng Evening News: Are the staff at the wedding site and online all your friends?
Yiwei: Yes, including photography, videography, overall planning, and piano performances, they are all our friends.
Why don't you promote gift money?
Yangcheng Evening News: You are not advocating the use of gift-giving money this time. Why?
Yiwei: First of all, how much money you give me about gift money and how much money I will give you in a few years is not very interesting to me.
Since I was a child, I had a dream of making gift money disappear in a wedding, haha.
Chao Chao: But we don't have to force others to do anything.
Because there will still be people who don’t understand, don’t you think you’re married, don’t you have a meal with us?
Give a gift and refuse.
So we decided to have a little bit of Buddhism, and everyone is free. If a good friend must give it, we will still accept it.
In short, whether you give or not, everyone is happy for us, and we will all be very happy.
Yangcheng Evening News: Have you ever calculated how much the entire wedding cost?
Yiwei: I haven't calculated it carefully, but the overall budget should be 10,000 to 20,000, including venue fees, photo and video costs, lucky draw gifts for everyone, and on-site staff to eat.
Yangcheng Evening News: How long was the preparation for the whole wedding?
Chao Chao: Three months before and after, but not every day preparations!
Yiwei: There were many days in the middle of "fishing", and the last two weeks began to rush to work.
For example, the wedding is about to be held in two days, and we haven’t written the love letter to each other yet!
Yangcheng Evening News: What effect do you most hope this wedding will achieve?
Yiwei: We want more than just celebration. We also want to use this wedding to express our own views on love and marriage.
Chao Chao: For us, the wedding is also like a project, or a work.
Yangcheng Evening News: Since it is online, have you thought about promoting your wedding in advance?
Chao Chao: At the beginning, I thought about whether it was going to be a transmission event and the traffic would be relatively high.
Yiwei: But later I felt that the wedding was still semi-private, and I didn't want to expose too much privacy.
Besides, we don't want to be internet celebrities either, haha.
Wedding postscript
We made it 120 points! Parents are satisfied
Yangcheng Evening News: Now that the wedding is complete, how would you rate yourself?
Yiwei: I am still very excited now. I think we have reached 120 points. The whole process is perfect. Many links have better results than when we rehearsed!
Chao Chao: Great!
Yangcheng Evening News: Are your parents satisfied with your "unconventional wedding"?
Yiwei: Mom and Dad are very satisfied!
My dad’s original words were: be individual, creative, and free.
Chao Chao: My dad was watching the ceremony online because of his work. He also won a set of board games!
Ha ha!
Yangcheng Evening News: How is the feedback from friends?
Yiwei: A friend told me that not only did she cry while watching the live broadcast, but her very "straight" boyfriend also cried.
Some friends wrote "small essays" to share with us the enlightenment this wedding gave them.
There is a friend who is going to get married on National Day. They are going to refer to how we broadcast live, haha.
Yangcheng Evening News: Do you think this "cooperation" between the two of you is a success?
Yiwei: The shortcomings of the two of us are actually very similar.
This thing is done, I think it will be helpful to our future marriage.
After all, the essence of marriage is "cooperation"!
Chao Chao: We may not be able to "cooperate" successfully on everything in the future, but we at least accomplished this together!
Yangcheng Evening News: During this "cooperation" process, did you discover any advantages of the other party?
Yiwei: I found that he is quite reliable in some aspects.
For example, for things I don't want to do, he is willing to fill up the seat in the end.
Chao Chao: I find that my wife is still very good, and I hope there will be more room for her to use her talents in the future.
Yangcheng Evening News: Finally, let me give you some suggestions-if you want to do a "live wedding", what do you think is the most important thing?
Yiwei: First you have to know what you want to express, and then do it if you have fun!
Chao Chao: Yes, break the imagination.
Don't be constrained.