A Multicultural Wedding at The Cedars of Williamsburg in Virginia

Irene Pan (a financial analyst) and Boyang Li (a research scientist) share a love for their roots. Together, the couple incorporated their families and Chinese traditions into their wedding day. First, Irene hand-painted the invitations to make sure that each one had both English and Chinese translations for guests. At the tea ceremony, Irene wore a qun kua, a two-piece dress, embroidered with golden phoenixes, while Boyang chose a modern black tangzhuang, or jacket. The pair ended the day with touching personal tributes to each of their loved ones. “So many of our guests, including our parents, traveled thousands of miles to our wedding,” Irene says. “We prepared a speech for every guest to thank them for their support and let them know how important they are to us.”
Before the ceremony, Boyang’s guys played traditional “gatecrashing” games, completing a series of challenges from the bridesmaids for the grand prize of Boyang seeing Irene. Everyone ate at long farm tables decorated with gauze table runners, brass candlesticks and overflowing bowls of fruit. Firework-like installations of pink Larkspur and roses hung above tables topped with low vases of lilies, peonies and roses. After downing pulled pork and beef brisket from Two Drummers Smokehouse, Irene and Boyang cut into an artistic blue ombré buttercream cake finished with burgundy garden roses and blue tweedia. Irene and her bridesmaids carried soft pink ranunculus and roses punctuated with contrasting pops of blue tweedia and tied with silk ribbons.