What are Chinese Door Games?

Chinese door games, also known as chuangmen, originated from the idea that a bride is a prized daughter, worth so much that her family refuses to marry to just anyone. Therefore, a man who is worthy of her hand must pass certain “tests” to claim her as his bride. Nowadays, this Chinese wedding tradition is celebrated by the bridesmaids making the groom play a number of entertaining door games, before being allowed entry to the brides home.

How do Door Games Work?

Door games consist of the bridesmaid party blocking entry to the brides house until the groom and his party have passed certain tests that they have set. The groom then needs to make a payment too, before he’s allowed over the threshold.

The Challenges

We’ve shot Chinese Wedding Door Games before, but these were some of the best Chinese door games that we have seen. The was James and Jess’s wedding, the games were truly hilarious to watch. What’s great is that all the groomsmen really got involved too. So much fun for us to watch and to capture.

Some of the tasks the bridesmaids gave out to James and his groomsmen as shown in the photos below were as follows:

1/ Swing the Sausage. A small sausage was tied to be a piece of string around your waist. Then you have to swing it up with your hips and into your mouth. This was hilarious to watch.

2/ Put Lipstick on the Groom and Ushers. They asked the page boy to put lipstick on the guys.

3/ Squeaky Duck. Some ushers had to lie on the ground and the groom and remaining ushers had to do press ups over them, but low enough to make the duck squeak. Again, just so funny to watch.

4/ Twerk Pong. Tie a box around the waist, with some ping pong balls in it. The ushers and groom need to swing their hips to pop the balls out of the boxes.

5/ Waxing Challenge. Ouch! Just how it sounds. The bridesmaids put some wax strips onto the groom and ushers chests and ripped them off.

6/ Pass the Seaweed. The groom and ushers have to pass a slither of seaweed between them, using only their mouths. In effect, they have to kiss each other.

7/ Sing to the bride. The groomsmen had to sing a song to the bride waiting upstairs in the front bedroom.

8/ Swapping the underpants. The groom puts a pair of underpants on around his knees. The ushers then need to remove them, not using their hands and pass them between them.

9/ Lick the Peanut Butter. The groom was wrapped in some cling film around his belly, then covered in peanut butter. The ushers each had to lick off some of the peanut butter. Nice!

Other tasks not shown in the pictures included eating some porridge, but with varying odd ingredients added. Called, the Four Flavors of Life. It is a fun game to test if the groom is ready for the reality of marriage. Being married comes with moments of all different flavours – sweet, spicy, sour, and bitter.

There are also various rounds of questions for the groom to answer about the bride.

Once the games were completed, the groom then had to make a token offering to pay for the bride, by handing over a red envelope filled with some money. His first couple of offers were promptly refused. Until he made added a worthwhile amount.

Carol & Paul

This wedding was a classic example of where having both Carol and Paul shoot the wedding, allowed Paul to concentrate purely on the grooms Chinese Door Games, while Carol was able to also keep an eye on the bride and cover that side of things. Then occasionally she’d pop out the front to capture things like the Sausage Game from two different angles, which so adds to the overall feel of the story, we think.

Chinese Wedding Door Games & Tea Ceremony

The Chinese Tea Ceremony afterwards was a much more sedate affair, but still a beautiful thing to capture. We love all of the Chinese wedding traditions. You can see the rest of Jess & James, Frensham Hall wedding on the blog post, just click the link.

Chinese symbol on front door at Chinese wedding

Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony

Both the bride and groom have to kneel in front of the parents, family members and hand them a small cup of tea. After taking a drink, the family member then hands over a present or some words of wisdom for the couple. It’s a lovely process, but it does take a lot time, so if planning your own, be sure to allow enough time in your wedding day to get through all of the guests that need to take part. Jess and James actually had two tea ceremonies. They did some of them at the parents home, then some more once they arrived at the venue, Frensham Hall.