The wedding tent across the road, and what is in the red trays
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A red and white marquee appears overnight across half a lane. At 07:00 a sound system starts. A line of young men in white shirts carries covered red trays towards a house with a gold sign over the door.
Vietnamese weddings happen in the street, in daylight, in front of everybody. Here is what the parts are.
What is in the red trays?
Mam qua — the gifts the groom's family brings to the bride's. The number is odd — usually 5, 7, 9 or 11 trays. Each one wears a red cloth cover, and one unmarried young person from each side carries it.
| Tray | What it holds | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Trau cau | Betel leaves and areca nut | The oldest symbol of marriage here |
| Tra, ruou | Tea and rice wine | For the altar and the ancestors |
| Banh phu the | "Husband and wife" cakes | Made in pairs |
| Hoa qua | Fruit, often dragon fruit and apples | Abundance |
| Heo quay | A whole roast pig | Wealth, in the south especially |
The handover is the photograph everybody takes: the groom's boys on one side, the bride's girls on the other, trays passing across in pairs. The red is the same red as the double-happiness character on the wall behind them.
Why does it happen at seven in the morning?
Because the hour is chosen for luck rather than for convenience. An elder or a fortune teller picks the date and often the hour. That regularly lands the procession between 07:00 and 09:00, which is also the coolest part of the day, so nobody argues.
The Tet guide explains the same lunar calendar that decides those dates. One consequence is visible from the street: no weddings at all during the seventh lunar month, which the ghost month guide covers.
What is the tent for?
The meal. A company rents the whole package: frame, canopy, tables, chairs, a sound system, and often the catering with it. Where the family has no yard it goes on the pavement or across the lane, and the neighbourhood drives around it for a day.
Nobody needs a permit for this in practice, and nobody complains, because the same family will be driving around somebody else's tent within the year. A tube house with 4 metres of frontage has nowhere else to put 90 guests.
What happens at the party?
A meal of about 2 hours with a fixed rhythm. Eight or nine courses land more or less together, and beer and ice go round. The couple walks table to table with a photographer, and people leave once they have eaten.
Expect a live band or a rented sound system at a volume that carries down the street, and expect karaoke at some point. What you will not usually get is a long evening: the tables clear by mid-afternoon at a lunch wedding.
What does a guest do?
Bring cash in the envelope handed to you at the door, and write your name on it. 300,000 to 500,000 dong a guest is the ordinary range, more for a close friend or family. The envelopes go into a box that pays for the day.
Dress smartly. Avoid white, which belongs to funerals, and avoid black for the same reason. Beyond that, nobody minds what a foreign guest wears, and the etiquette guide covers the rest of the room.
Can you watch from the street?
Yes, and you will, because it is happening on the pavement. Stand back, stay out of the doorway, and let the tray procession pass rather than photographing it head-on from a metre away. Two minutes and it is gone.
The ceremony inside — bowing at the ancestor altar, the tea to the parents — is family and not spectacle. The photography guide sets out where the line sits, and it sits closer than at a festival.
Why so many at once?
Because the auspicious dates are shared. When a good date lands on a weekend in November, every marquee in the district goes up on the same morning. The same bands then work 3 parties in a day.
The clustering is why the season is obvious from a bus window. Autumn to just before Tet is thick with tents; the seventh lunar month has none at all.
FAQ
Why is there a tent blocking the street?
It is a wedding. A rented marquee goes up on the pavement or across a lane in front of the family's house, holds the tables for the day, and comes down that evening. Traffic goes around it and nobody objects.
What are the red trays being carried?
Mam qua, the engagement gifts. The groom's family carries an odd number of covered red trays — betel and areca, tea, cake, fruit, wine, sometimes a roast pig — to the bride's house, handed across in pairs by young unmarried relatives.
Why does a Vietnamese wedding start so early?
Because the hour is chosen, not convenient. A fortune teller or an elder picks an auspicious date and time, and that often puts the procession at seven or eight in the morning, band included.
Can a visitor watch?
From the street, yes, and it is a public thing happening on a public pavement. Watching is fine, standing in the doorway is not, and a camera pointed into the ceremony itself is the line most people would rather you did not cross.
What if you are invited?
Go. Wear something smart and not white, arrive close to the stated time, and put cash in the envelope you are handed at the door — commonly 300,000 to 500,000 dong a guest, more if you are close to the family.
How long does the party last?
The meal itself runs about two hours and moves fast: courses arrive together, the couple visits every table, and people leave when they have eaten. It is not an evening that runs to midnight.
When is wedding season?
Autumn through to just before Tet is the heaviest stretch, and the seventh lunar month is the gap — nobody marries during ghost month. You will notice the difference walking through any provincial town.