Wedding Invitations

Oriental Wedding Invitations

We, westerners perceive the weeding cards with oriental designs and symbols printed on them as exotically different while the asian world or some westernized parts of it see this whole custom of sending wedding invitations as a special, out of the ordinary thing and tend to adopt it as an exotic ritual.

Since some parts of China and India were, decades ago, british colonies, intercultural exchanges seemed rather normal, the whole Europe being extremely fascinated and captivated by  those unknown cultural customs coming from unknown parts of the world. In their essence things aren’t that much different nowadays.

The most frequently used symbols for creating a wedding invitation are Indian, Chinese and Japanese pictogram.

These pictograms, which evolved from drawn images, are the alphabet of that specific country, each one having a distinct signification. For example you could use on your wedding invitation card the popular Chinese symbol “Shuang Xi” which stands for “double happiness”. This very symbol is engraved on more than one ornamental object in the Chinese emperor’s red wedding chamber, found in the main palace of the Forbidden City.

Traditional asian calligraphy has it’s great importance, especially in Japanese culture. You can write a short poem on your invitation card to express your emotions or feelings. Usually this type of poem is called haiku in Japanese culture and they often describe a person’s deep feelings in few but inspirational words.

Asian countries are closely linked together by religious beliefs such as Buddhism but also share a wide variety of mythological symbols.

If you have an oriental theme wedding party you can probably use some of these symbols to create the asian atmosphere. These same symbols could be used on your wedding invitations. For example, if you intend to have a Japanese theme wedding you could use traditional symbols like the pink cherry blossom tree known as a sakura, the art or origami, which is perfect for hand made wedding invitations, the art of arranging flowers or ikebana for a perfect Japanese ambient, the geisha style for clothing, accessories or make-up, the traditional Japanese men’s clothing, and the list could go on.

The lotus or the water lilies are flowers with some powerful meanings so you could consider using a lotus patterned wedding invitation or attach to the wedding invitation a lotus made out of paper.

The famous bamboo plant is wide-spread on the whole asian continent and if you like the green color then it would be a great choice for your wedding invitations. Don’t forget that bamboo also represents longevity and power to withstand in face of all problems, just like the bamboo plant itself, which never dies even if it’s burned.

Red is considered the color of love not only in the western world but also in the oriental countries, so it could be a main color pick for your oriental wedding invitations.

The possibilities are infinite and you probably know that if you are a fan of the oriental cultures, so the more choices you have the better the wedding could get!