As spring was heading around the corner to take everyone to the outdoors of fresh air, many people were happy. The trees began to blossom with color wakening the air with life. Brightness of the leaves and the fragrance of freshness which smelt more like a cocktail of fruit-salad and vivid in the air as you walked past while transporting your emotions to a new level. It was a spectacular time in Qingdao, with many of the parks filling up with locals and visitors picnicking and sightseeing tours at the famous tourist spot areas.

I was traveling on the bus to work and thinking of the past year, when I noticed that a lot of Chinese use this time of season to exchange their love for one another. The park was a sea of brides looking so beautiful and glamorous and posing in white dresses, as if they were a white swan ready to spread their wings and take flight to the unknown blue sky.

Walking through the park and viewing the photographer capturing the bride and groom, I noticed that a lot of the brides were wearing jeans and sneakers. I wondered why and thought that maybe it was a scene from the ‘Run Away Bride’ movie. Where the bride would panic moments before the wedding and would disappear quickly leaving the groom alone at the church alter. I was interested to know.

Not being married myself, I was happy to finally be the one who was starring at them and not the usual way of quick look at the foreigner. I sat for an hour before the photographer came out of the blue and asked if it would be OK for me to be the center piece of the next picture. I was shocked and my feeling of being the one glaring at the bride and groom was turned again onto looking at the foreigner. Smiling politely I said um, um, OK. The one white swan quickly turned into ten bridal swans standing around this little unknown foreigner, while the lucky grooms watched with anticipating eyes.

After several minutes of click, click, click, ok, ok, click, click, my time was up and I entered the school gate to begin planning for classes. I couldn’t help thinking that the custom of taking wedding pictures weeks before the big day would be acceptable back home. Tradition has it that the groom wouldn’t see the bride in the bridal dress until the day of the wedding, but here in China many Chinese love to take wedding pictures in both western and traditional Chinese dresses and then mount them proudly on the walls of their houses, even in the bathroom and above the bed to the great size of two meters by two meters and glossy.