Live in Vietnam a while and you'll get invited to a wedding. I had the chance to attend one myself, down in the south.
What struck me once I actually went was thatquite different from a Japanese wedding. To begin with, what I attended was not a hotel banquet hall butsomewhere like an open-air beer gardenIt was.
In this article I'll write about weddings in Vietnam, centered on that experience.
First, a caveat: a Vietnamese wedding “can't be summed up in one description”
There is something I want to note upfront. Weddings in Vietnam areit really does vary from region to region and family to family。
- Regional differences: customs differ between the north and the south
- differences from family to family: some are held at the house, and some are receptions at an outside venue
- The gap between cities and the countryside: the picture changes between the cities and the countryside too
so you cannot describe “this is what a Vietnamese wedding is like” with a single template. This article isOne example, from a wedding I attended in the southso please read it in that spirit. Where I haven't attended a particular type myself, I'll say so plainly.
A wedding doesn't end after one event
In Japan, I think the image of a wedding as a single-day event is strong. Vietnam is different.it is split into several stagesis the general pattern.
First comes the traditional ceremony
In most cases, the traditional ceremonies come first. These areBasically family only, with several people each from the groom's side and the bride's side,the people whose role is to carry the betrothal giftsare the ones invited.
I did not take part in the traditional ceremony myself, so I cannot write in detail about what happens inside. But from what I have looked up, a Vietnamese wedding generally moves through the following stages.
| stage | Vietnamese | Details | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| ① The formal introduction | lễ dạm ngõ | The two families meet for the first time and discuss the date and the number of betrothal gifts | close relatives of both families only |
| ② The betrothal ceremony | lễ ăn hỏi | The groom's side formally presents the betrothal gifts to the bride's side, and the engagement is made public | Relatives, plus the young people carrying the betrothal gifts |
| 3. Ceremony and reception | lễ cưới / tiệc cưới | Fetching the bride, reporting to the ancestors, and holding the reception | sometimes several hundred people |
| ④ The return visit | lễ lại mặt | The newlyweds go back to the bride's family home to pay their respects | family only |
In the south, I am told, many families skip ① and roll ② and ③ together. How far things get simplified here again depends on the family.
There is a piece of lore about the people who carry the betrothal gifts
I mentioned "the people whose role is to carry the betrothal gifts" earlier — these areUnmarried young men and womenare the ones who traditionally take this on. Unmarried men from the groom's side carry the trays of betrothal gifts, and unmarried women from the bride's side receive them. The number of people isthe same number as there are traysare put together.
This is where it gets interesting. Take on this role and"your own marriage luck will slip away (mất duyên)"is a saying that goes back a long way, I'm told. To cancel it out, the male and female carriers face each other andThey exchange lì xì envelopes with each other— this, apparently, is called “passing on the bond” (trao duyên). I liked the fact that such a charming little custom is built into something as solemn as a betrothal ceremony.
Incidentally, the number of trays of betrothal gifts follows a clearNorth and southis a belief you'll still hear.
| North | An odd number(3, 5, 7, 9, 11). Odd numbers are seen as numbers that keep growing |
|---|---|
| South | an even number(6, 8, 10). “Forming a pair” stands for the married couple. There is also the luck of 6 echoing the sound of “lộc” (fortune) and 8 that of “phát” (prosperity) |
The reception comes in several patterns too
What comes after that is the reception. There are several patterns here as well. First, in terms of timing,Ones held in the daytime, and ones held at nightis a belief you'll still hear.
This too seems to differ between north and south, and according to Vietnamese media,in the north, midday on a weekday; in the south, weekend eveningsis said to be typical. In the north it is “so people can drop by on their way to or from work,” and in the south it is “because midday is too hectic to celebrate properly.” The reasoning runs in opposite directions within the same country, which is the interesting part.
Pattern ①: the strongly local banquet
At a truly local wedding,Down your beer and sing karaoke—— it comes out close to that kind of banquet. Rather than a solemn ceremony, the atmosphere is a place to drink and sing as loudly as you like.
Pattern ②: the younger generation's stylish venues
The one I actually attended was this type. The venue was somewhere like a slightly upscale local izakaya.a fairly large open-air beer garden that holds about 50 peoplemight be the closest thing to picture.
You drink beer there, dishes keep arriving, people sing karaoke and take photos. It was a completely different species of event from a Japanese reception, where an MC runs the program in a hotel banquet hall. To put it bluntly,A temperature closer to “a big drinking party”.
Pattern ③: hotels and event halls
Of course, there are people who hold the reception at a proper hotel or event venue. I imagine this comes down largely to the age of the couple and the family's way of thinking.
Things must look different again out in the provinces, but I have never been to a wedding outside the city, so I cannot write about that here.
| Type | Venue | Atmosphere |
|---|---|---|
| A banquet with a strong local flavor | In front of the house, or a local venue | Beer downed in one go, then karaoke. Close to a banquet |
| younger generation (the one I attended) | A slightly upscale izakaya / an outdoor beer garden | About 50 people. Drink, eat, sing, take photos |
| Formal | Hotels and event halls | A format relatively close to a Japanese reception |
Vietnamese wedding behaviour that surprises Japanese guests
Here are a few things that struck me as very different from Japan, whether from attending or from looking into it afterward.
Time runs on “rubber time”
In Vietnam,"giờ dây thun (rubber-band time)"is a phrase they use. Literally, time that stretches and shrinks. The invitation says 6 p.m., but the thing actually starts at 8, and guests show up at 8:30——that sort of thing happens, and local newspapers bring it up regularly.
That said, this varies by region too, and I hear there are places in the countryside that start exactly at the time on the invitation. Either way, moving to a Japanese minute-by-minute schedule will wear you out, so it is best to give yourself room.
you can leave partway through, and there is no seating plan
At a Japanese reception, the closing speech and seeing the guests off are all part of one flow. Vietnam is far freer there, andYou may leave once you have finished eatingis the general feeling. Showing your face for an hour and then heading home is perfectly normal.
There are basically no seating charts or place cards either; people who know each other just sit together as they like. I think that looseness is what creates the feeling of a “big drinking party.”
The groom's side and the bride's side hold separate receptions
This may be the part that surprises Japanese people most. In Vietnam,The bride's side and the groom's side each hold their own partyis the standard. If the two families live close by, both happen on the same day; if they are far apart, they run over consecutive days. Even the invitations, apparently, are worded differently for the groom's side and the bride's side.
Wedding favors are nowhere to be found
Japanese weddings have return gifts for guests, but as far as I could find, there's no equivalent custom in Vietnam. The flow of gifts seems to run one way: from the guests to the couple.
If you get invited: the cash gift and what to wear
From here I will write about the two things most likely to trip you up if you are actually invited — money and what to wear.
You put your cash gift straight into the envelope you were handed
In Japan you have to buy the gift envelope yourself, write your name on it with a brush, and so on. In Vietnam it was much simpler.
The invitation comes with an envelope, so you put money in it and hand it over. That's the usual way. There's no need to go hunting for a special envelope.
Handing it over is simple too: at the entrance to the venue,there is a box set out, and you put it in thereis the usual method. It is different from the Japanese manner of presenting it ceremoniously at the reception desk. That said, there is a culture of recording “who gave how much,” soDo not forget to write your own name on the envelope。
As for how much to put in, from what I've seenRoughly one to three VND 500,000 notes. In other words, I think 500,000 to 1,500,000 VND (roughly 3,000 to 9,000 yen) is the usual range. The thinking is to adjust the number of notes according to how close you are.
That instinct seems to be about right. In a survey run by a Vietnamese newspaper in 2024,59% answered that they give 500,000 to 1,000,000 dongwas the most common answer, followed by “300,000 to 500,000 VND” at 30%. That said, for a reception at an upscale hotel or restaurant in the city, some say anything under 800,000 to 1,000,000 VND will not cut it.Adjust to the grade of the venue——in other words, thinking of it as “the cost of your own meal plus a bit to celebrate” seems close to the local sense of the going rate.
If there is one trick to it,use the cleanest bills you can. Vietnamese notes get pretty battered while they are in circulation, so I pick the cleanest 500,000-dong note I have on me and put that in.
What you wear is decided by the type of venue
What to wear changes depending on which type of ceremony you've been invited to. Getting this wrong is awkward, so it's worth checking the venue beforehand.
| What kind of ceremony | Dress guidelines |
|---|---|
| local receptions (restaurants, outdoor venues and so on) | A shirt is enough. Some people turn up in sandals |
| Traditional ceremonies held at the house | A suit or an áo dàiand the like: proper attire is required |
So if the reception is more like a beer garden, fairly casual is perfectly fine. If, on the other hand, you are invited to a traditional ceremony held at a home, you should turn up properly dressed, closer to how you would for a wedding in Japan.
To add a note about color,Safer to avoid white. Vietnamese fashion media put it at the top of the list of colors to avoid, on the grounds that it "steals the bride's color." That said, this is largely an urban, younger-generation sensibility, and some guides written for foreign residents say any color is fine. There's no strict dress code, but the right temperature seems to be: just leave pure white out of it.
Women wearing an áo dài will be warmly received. It isn't required, though, andThe bride may be wearing a red áo dài, so that is the one thing you should avoid.
What surprised me most when I attended was that almost none of the tension the word “ceremony” conjures up was there. Chairs and tables were lined up at an outdoor venue, beer was poured, and dishes kept arriving one after another. Someone sang karaoke, and everyone was taking photos of each other. Rather than scenes switching on cue from a program the way a Japanese reception does, it felt like one long stretch of noisy, happy time that simply kept going. It is unquestionably a place to celebrate the couple, but the way of celebrating is pushed all the way toward “everyone drinks and enjoys themselves.” Rather than standing on form, they value the energy of the room——that, I felt, is the culture here.
The south seems to be freer
From here on, this isn't something I saw firsthand, butWhat I heard locallyis the basis for what I write here.
People in the south seem on the whole to be fairly open, and when I was peering at a wedding being held out on the street,Someone called out “come and join us,” and even a complete stranger got invited in——I have heard of cases like that.
By Japanese standards, a wedding is something only people who received an invitation attend. Set against that, weddings in Vietnam areA far less formal, much freer styleis probably what it comes down to.
This stayed with me, so I looked into it a little, and it seems it is less about “because it is the south” thanEspecially in rural areas, the range of people invited is very wideThat seems to be the situation behind it. Provincial receptions running to 300 or 500 people are not unusual, with everyone from distant relatives to neighbors invited. I even found a firsthand account that said, “There were 500 people at my wedding, and more than 400 of them were strangers to me.” Out toward the Mekong Delta, apparently there is also a view that the more guests there are, the more auspicious it is.
What's interesting, though, is thatThe host's generosity and the guest's enthusiasm are two different things, it seems. In the newspaper survey mentioned earlier, 65% of respondents said they would “neither attend nor give” in response to “an invitation from someone you are not close to.” Alongside a culture that welcomes anyone, the people on the receiving end are fairly pragmatic, and that may be how it actually works.
In closing: the fun of the moment matters more than the form
The Vietnamese wedding I saw in the south was, in a word,“Fun in the moment matters more than form”was what it amounted to. Drinking beer at an open-air beer garden, singing karaoke, taking photos. That stands perfectly well on its own as a wedding.
This is one example, of course. The north will be different, and things vary by region and in families that choose a formal venue. Still, I did clearly feel that the frame of “this is how a wedding should be” is nowhere near as rigid as it is in Japan.
If you ever get the chance to be invited to a wedding in Vietnam, go without bracing yourself. It is probably a much more relaxed place than you imagine.
Frequently asked questions
- How are Vietnamese weddings different from Japanese ones?
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It varies greatly by region and by family, but the traditional rites and the reception are generally held separately. The reception can be closer to a drinking party, held at an outdoor venue or a local restaurant with beer and karaoke. It is also standard for the groom's side and the bride's side to hold separate receptions; you may leave partway through, there is no seating chart, and I found no custom equivalent to Japanese party favors.
- Do weddings start on time?
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Vietnam even has a phrase for it, "giờ dây thun (rubber-band time)," and things can start well behind the hour printed on the invitation. That said, there are regions in the countryside where things start right on schedule, so it isn't uniform. Best to build in some slack and not worry about it.
- What kind of venue is the reception held at?
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Venues vary widely: hotels and event halls, but also the space in front of someone's house, a local restaurant, or an open-air beer-garden style spot. The one I attended in the south was an outdoor venue that held about 50 people. Some are held during the day and some at night.
- Who takes part in the traditional ceremonies?
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It is basically centered on relatives, and the general form is that several people from each of the groom's and the bride's sides are invited to carry the betrothal gifts. It is held separately from the reception.
- How much money should I put in the envelope at a Vietnamese wedding?
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The invitation comes with an envelope, so you put money inside and hand it over. From what I've seen, one to three 500,000 VND notes — roughly 500,000 to 1,500,000 VND (about 3,000 to 9,000 yen) — is the going rate. You adjust the number of notes according to how close you are to the couple. Picking the cleanest bills you can is a nice touch.
- What should I wear if I'm invited to a wedding?
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It depends on the type of venue. For a local reception at a restaurant or an outdoor space, a shirt is plenty, and some people turn up in sandals. If you are invited to a traditional ceremony held at a home, on the other hand, you need proper attire such as a suit or an áo dài.
- Can even someone they do not know join in?
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As one story the author heard locally, in the south there are cases where someone peeking at a wedding taking place out in the street was called over and invited in. It depends on the region and the family, but the atmosphere seems far less formal than in Japan.
