Auspicious Wedding Dates: Tips on How To Choose the Perfect Chinese Wedding Date

There is a lot to consider when planning your wedding and Chinese tradition suggests that for a marriage to be a successful one it needs to be set on an auspicious date. An auspicious wedding date refers to a favorable date that ensures the marriage is happy and long-lasting. This can be complex and requires a lot of consideration as well as knowledge of each partner’s horoscopes.

Chinese Auspicious Wedding Date Tips

As wedding planners, we want to make sure that we set up our couples for perfection in their future life. This belief goes as far as advising the best dates to get married according to Chinese tradition. While this may seem unnecessary, we believe that leaving no stone unturned will give our couples the biggest chance of a wonderful life together.

Here are general rules to follow as well as a short guide to picking out your own auspicious wedding date.

Two Weddings in One Year

If a close relative has been married you’ll need to postpone your wedding until the following year. Furthermore, the same also goes for if a funeral has been held. If you’ve had to push the wedding to next year then make sure you’re researching the appropriate year when looking for auspicious dates. Auspicious dates will change from year to year and you’ll most likely need to wait until late September for the Almanac calendar to be released.

Double Spring and Leap Year

If a year has two beginnings of spring it is considered to be an auspicious year. Moreover, if that year is a leap year then even better! However, be careful as the year after is often a blind year, meaning there is no spring beginning. This makes it very unlucky.

Two or More Celebrations

If the marriage ceremony and the banquet are going to be held on separate days then the dates of both should ideally be auspicious. If this is completely impossible, the day of the banquet should be auspicious and count as the official wedding day.

Birthdays

It is considered unlucky to wed on birth or death dates. As a result, make sure to avoid getting married on the bride’s, groom’s, parents’, and any unmarried siblings’ birth date or death date if they have died before the wedding.

Ghosts

Staying along the lines of death dates, any date associated with death or ghosts is considered a bad time to be married. Death dates and funeral dates are a big no-no as well as any date within 3 months. March, July, and September are also to be avoided because these months consist of ghost festivals. Ghost festivals include; Ching Ming festival, the Hungry Ghost Festival, and the Chung Yeung Festival.

The Evil Spirit San Niang

There is a Chinese legend that states San-Niang was unable to get married. This was due to the God of Marriage refusing to pull the silken cord. To spite the God of Marriage, she vowed to ruin the marriages of couples wed on the 3rd, 7th, 13th, 18th, 22nd, and 27th of every month. Therefore, these dates should be avoided.

The Eight Characters of Birth Time

This is one of the biggest and possibly most difficult factors to get right. If the eight characters of the bride and groom’s birth date conflict then a day needs to be chosen where the evil spirit can be eliminated. The wedding date can not conflict with the gods that govern the eight characters of the birth date. As a result, the day and year must not conflict with the marriage constellation. Lastly, try to ensure the date is governed by ‘Tian De’ or ‘Yue De’ as well as not conflicting with the groom’s wealth star or the bride’s husband star.

Conflicting Zodiac Signs

In the Chinese zodiac, various signs conflict with each other. This can include the Ox and the Sheep, the Rat and the Horse, and the Dragon and the Dog. As a result, if you were born under the month of the Sheep, you should avoid being married in the month of the Ox.

Give Priority to the Bride’s Birthday

When avoiding conflicting months or days priority should be given to the bride’s birthday if there’s no way to accommodate both parties. If this rule is ignored it is said that the marriage will be an unhappy one and most likely end in divorce.

Chinese Farmer’s Almanac

This is a document produced each year that takes information from all elements and calenders. This allows predictions on each day of the following year. The days considered auspicious can be found in this document, and will often state the zodiac in conflict with this date. This is the easiest way to find which dates in a year are going to be auspicious wedding dates. Furthermore, you can go through eliminating ones that won’t work for the reasons listed above.

To select which date out of the auspicious ones left on the list it is best to turn to more practical choices such as when is comfortable for the family, avoiding important work events or exams, and what time of the year you want the ceremony to be held. This should leave you with the date specially designed for your wedding and give you the best chance of a wonderful fulfilling marriage.

Use Someone’s Help

All of the various festivals and conflicts make choosing the date very difficult. Many people opt for a Feng Shui master to help them pick out the special date. This is to ensure the date is chosen perfectly and without mistakes. If you go for this option, ensure you have all the necessary information such as birth dates and funeral dates with you when you go to visit. Alternatively, there are resources and calculators online that claim to do the same job although their reliability is hard to ensure. Whatever you decide on it is important that everyone is happy with the agreement.

So there you have it, a complete list of everything that should be considered when picking out an Auspicious wedding. Moreover, how to go about finding yours. The most important aspect of a happy marriage is a loving and compatible couple. However, making sure you’re getting married on you and your partner’s lucky day can’t hurt. Furthermore, it keeps an age-old Chinese tradition alive (and keeps your parents happy).