中国式英国王室婚礼

APRIL 28, 2011, 3:52 PM HKT AP Photo Groom Wang Zueqian and his bride, Yao Yan, walk together during their wedding ceremony in Nanjing, China Pomp & Circumstance The British aren't the only ones who can put on a royal wedding. On April 18, a Chinese couple in Nanjing organized a regal celebration for themselves complete with British-like ceremonial garb, a horse-drawn carriage and an archway of swords. More In Royal Wedding When Will India See Its 'Royal Wedding'? A Cake Inspired by a Royal Wedding Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com The British aren’t the only ones who can put on a royal wedding. On April 18, a Chinese couple in Nanjing organized a regal celebration for themselves complete with British-like ceremonial garb (including the famous Beefeater-style hats), a horse-drawn carriage for the procession and an archway of swords, according to the Associated Press. Total price: more than 50,000 yuan (US$7,600). That’s a bargain, of course, compared to the estimated cost of the real royal wedding on Friday—the range is broad and starts at 20 million pounds (US$33 million)– of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Of course, that figure includes the costs of the wedding itself, as well as the price of security and street cleaning. And the couple’s horse-drawn carriage will have five horses; the Chinese couple’s carriage in Nanjing had just one. The ceremony was that latest manifestation of China’s shanzhai (山寨) culture – a tradition of deliberately cheap fakery that has produced comically bad knock-offs of everything from iPhones to television shows, even pandas. As with most things shanhzai, the Chinese wedding didn’t go off smoothly. The wedding parade of 50 people, a dozen cars and the horse-drawn carriage hit a glitch, according to reports, when firecrackers – a traditional element of any Chinese celebration – went off prematurely. The horse got rattled and handlers had to step in to calm it down. Photos of the wedding posted online elicited mixed responses from Chinese Internet users, with some offering advice on how it could have been better executed. “Maybe if you only had the horse carriages and not the cars in the background, you’d get more admiration,” one commenter from Yunnan province wrote on the Netease news portal. “As it is, it looks neither rural nor ‘royal.’” Others were more impressed. “Give Chinese people enough to eat, and there’s nothing they won’t do,” wrote a Netease reader from Henan province. The 23-year-old groom, Wang Xueqian, who bore the cost of the pageantry, hired wedding planner Hu Lu to plan the nuptials. Apparently Mr. Wang and his new bride aren’t the only ones who want a royal-themed wedding; the planner has three more weddings next month with similar processions planned. “Every bride wants to be princess Snow White when they get married,” the wedding planner said, according to AP. Get Scene in your inbox by subscribing to our daily newsletter. Royal Theme Scores in Chinese Weddings -- Scene Asia - Scene Asia - WSJ http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2011/04/28/royal-theme-scores-in-chinese-weddings/tab/print/ 1 of 1 4/28/2011 11:14 PM