Wedding superstitions

OK....picking a wedding day is not as simple as I thought.

Wait, let me clarify. If it was all up to me, picking a day would be simple. *click through PDA* "Yup, I'm free....let's get married on the 16th!" I mean, one weekend to the next is fine with me.

BUT, it's not quite as easy for my girl. A lot has to do with Chinese superstitions. After many crazy conversations about picking a day, I hereby present you with a list of all the restrictions you need to consider if you ever marry a chinese man or woman:

1. The month of the wedding cannot fall on a family member's or couple's birthmonth. So we cannot have our wedding in January, May, September, October, November, and whatever birthdays her family members fall on.
2. You cannot pick a month or day with the number 7. I don't know what the background for this is, but apparently the number 7 is bad luck, just as 13 might be for us. So having a wedding in July is uncomfortable.
3. You cannot pick a day with the number 4. This one I understand a little. 4 is bad luck in both Japanese and Chinese circles because when you pronounce 4 in those languages, it's really close in sound to the word "death". So it's bad luck too! Are you going crazy with me yet?.... there's more.....
4. The hours you marry during the wedding day, has to be chosen according to the pair's astrological sign. So I'm a Boar, and my girls a Rat. So according to chinese astrology we shouldn't get married between the hours of 9am - 1pm. So we either have an evening wedding or I'm waking everyone up so we can get married before breakfast! hahah.
5. It has to sound good. OK, so this last one is probably my fiance's preference. She says 3 numbers sounds better then 2. So if it's June 30th, she can say "Six Three Zero" for the wedding day rather then say June 2nd where it's just "Six Two".

Apparently there are wedding astrology specialists in Asia that spend their entire careers picking days for a wedding couple. The stars, moon and universe seems to have to align just in the right way before you're given the OK to marry. There's actually MORE restrictions I know of but I better not remind my fiance or else she'll add to the list.

It's like you have to be Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones in order to find the right day where sunlight has to strike the groom's forehead on the left temple, so that the skies will open up and adorn the bride with a beam of light coming out from the groom's eyeballs.

Given all these crazy superstitions, it's amazing there were enough couples in China to make 1.4 billion people there at all? How in the world can anyone ever get married over there?

OH, what did I get myself into..........