Chinese weddings are no meagre affair. Copious amounts of food, baijiu, the colour red filled the wedding venue; lest we forget the guests themselves. With this “姐” (“jie”; sister) and that “哥” (“ge”; brother) all staring at the grinning bride and groom on stage, who knew that so many people could fit in there? We descended from the stage to make a quick outfit change (one of three would you believe it!) and then continued to make our toasts around the room.
Supplementing the baijiu for clear water (there was no way I was going to make my way around every table toasting away drinking rice wine) my name should have at the very least been in the running for that year’s Best Actor Oscar.
I “grimaced”, made the necessary pulled face and faked downing the glass of “baijiu” in my hand, slowly making our way from table to table, “ganbei”ing the multitudes of aunties and uncles that I’d briefly met once or twice beforehand. DiCaprio eat your heart out. Side note; we did not get to taste one single ounce of all that glorious wedding feast, our own wedding feast, that adorned each table. Still a sour note to this day).
On what was one of the most memorable, but honestly hectic and absolutely knackering, days of my life so far, one thought kept coming back to me in the days afterwards; had all those decorations, outfits, table fancies and all the other wedding knickknacks really come from the inside of cardboard boxes?
My wife’s hometown is roughly a 4-hour drive from Chengdu into northwestern Sichuan, although that can be three times longer during the Chinese New Year, the world’s biggest annual mass migration, as millions (if not more) of people vacate the major cities and head home.
Not having a car of our own, Taobao and JD became our go to pre-wedding planners, suppliers and invisible guests all rolled into one. We depended on the support of those precious shops from all four corners of the Middle Kingdom to help supply our autumnal wedding. In retrospect, our wedding invitations should have said something along the lines of “We welcome you to celebrate the wedding of Mr and Mrs Wilson and their helpful companions; Yiwu and Hangzhou!
During the actual wedding in Sichuan. My middle outfit (did I mention that we had to get changed three times throughout the day?) that was a suave tuxedo came from a tailors in metropolitan Shanghai, courtesy of kuaidi. One of my wife’s wedding dresses came from Marco Polo’s “Venice of the East”; courtesy of, you guessed it, Kuaidi. Wedding invites; Taobao. Wedding treats and fancies (your White Rabbit candy, jujubes and chocolates); also Taobao. The huge felt “福” that adorned our bedroom door; you guessed it, Taobao.
Thanks Jack Ma, without whom we (or maybe just I) would have been tormented to grueling and long hours of endless wedding shopping.
The Chinese answer to eBay and Amazon all rolled into one has everything anyone would want, and much more besides just supplying our wedding demands. And no, I still haven’t looked at the bill, and I never will!
Taobao was relatively unknown outside China until 2014, when the record-breaking initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange of its parent company, Alibaba Group, drew worldwide attention.
Now I get requests from my parents, friends and relatives back in the UK to bring back random items found on Taobao; cheap Christmas “handmade” decorations, “red” memorabilia and even “湖南卤粉” (Hunan braised noodles; quite the delicacy in my family household!).
If my parents could have been sent by kuaidi, then it would have been an all rounded kuaidi wedding. But unfortunately, that honour goes to Air China. Taobao and Jingdong, you’re missing a trick by not investing in airlines, you’d make a fortune!
It’s just a shame that our wedding ceremony was just before the famous Singles’ Day Sales. Taobao is famous for its massive sales events, particularly on Singles’ Day (11 November), which has become the world’s largest online shopping day. Taobao and other Alibaba platforms annually offer huge discounts and promotions during this event, driving billions of dollars in sales.
My big fat kuaidi wedding went without a hitch and I am still happily married 5 years later.
All of those cardboard boxes unpacked and unfolded, I raise a glass to the many hardworking members along the supply chain.
That’s from those in the warehouses to the drivers, the kuaidi “little brothers”, as many refer to them, and those who do all of that scanning in your local Cainiao!
