The newly-married couple and their parents in the Grand View Garden.

On Jun.18, the Grand View Garden (Daguanyuan) witnessed a wedding combining Chinese and western styles. A French guy Yoann and his bride, Miss Luo, held their wedding in traditional Chinese ceremonies.

Two years ago, they met in France and fell in love. The bridegroom's parents had made a special trip to Beijing to participate in the wedding.

Yoann's family was fascinated by traditional Chinese culture, and thus decided to hold an aristocratic wedding in the Grand View Garden, which is located in the southern part of Beijing and built based on the layout described in the famous classical Chinese novel A Dream of Red Mansions by a Qing Dynasty writer Cao Xueqin (17l5-l763).

Guards of honor wearing the regal attires of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) escorted the bride to Happy Red Court (Yihongyuan), the residence of Jia Baoyu, the hero of the novel. Her family members and a group of tourists watched the whole process.

Yoann also wore traditional Chinese clothes. He was too impatient to meet his bride, but the master of ceremonies stopped him. When Yoann was an engineering student in France, he watched videocassettes introducing ancient Chinese wedding ceremonies several times.

During the ceremony the bride was even busier than the master of ceremonies. She was mumbling throughout the whole ceremony. Yoann carefully listened what the master of ceremonies said, and then gazed at his bride. Miss Luo immediately understood what he wanted and started to translate. At the command of his bride, the ceremony was processing in an orderly way.

Yoann's parents were nervous. They did not know why people laughed, but they still tried their best to reset their hats and ornaments. "It's heavy!" Yoann's mother pointed to her head ornament and smiled.

Although Yoann said he was interested in Chinese culture, he admitted that he hardly understood the cultural background of Happy Red Court and Jia Baoyu. But he still considered the novel A Dream of Red Mansions as a masterpiece.

The manager of the Grand View Garden said this was the first wedding ceremony to be held for a foreigner here.

(Chinanews.cn June 21, 2006)