The traditional wedding procession is still very much an integral part of a wedding ceremony in rural China. That is because the bride usually comes from a different village some distance away. To welcome the bride to the groom's village, a ceremony is performed to signify the event. This is shown in the picture below. The bride riding in an enclosed carriage, carried by two mules front and back, arrives at the groom's village in great fanfare. The procession is preceded by a band who leads the procession with the sound of suona horns (a type of woodwind instrument).

Upon arrival at the groom's home, the groom meets the procession and opens the curtain in front of the carriage to fetch the bride. The picture on the right shows the groom wearing a large flower ribbon over his jacket leading the bride, who is wearing red and covered from the head down in a red veil. Not allowed to show her face, and not able to see in front of her, the bride is assisted by two maids to guide her to the groom's house, where she will complete the wedding ceremony by bowing to the groom's parents and other elders in an elaborate and traditional routine. The groom would not know who he is marrying to until the ceremony is completed, and then he is allowed to lift the veil covering the bride's face, seeing her sometimes for the first time, if the marriage is arranged by his parents through a marriage broker.

The wedding ceremony is always a communal affair. The entire village turns out to witness the proceedings. A new person is coming to live in the village. She is greeted with cheers and happiness all around. New mothers holding children are anxious to find out who is joining their rank, which would not be known until the next day after the ceremony.

In the hilly region, with a shortage of level land, the majority of villages are very small in size, with populations no more than 100. Instead of marrying within the village, whose members are very often blood-related, brides come from different villages. The marriage procession completes the process of moving the bride and her belongings, together with dowry, to her new home.

In some of the more affluent villages the mule-borne carriage is replaced by an automobile, as shown in the picture on the right, which I took in 1999 in the southern part of the river basin, where the rainfall is more plentiful and the farmers are doing better than those in the north.