How Partners are selected in Vietnamese Wedding Traditions?

You will find that the marriage proposals in the past used to be made between families who were equal economically and socially. The purpose of the marriage was establishment of a social alliance between the two families. Hence, the groom’s family approached the bride’s family through an agent. These agents could be relatives of the groom or an official matchmaker. The matchmaker collected the horoscope of the bride and the groom respectively and made the bride’s horoscope available to the groom and vice versa. The families then consulted fortune tellers to see if the horoscopes were compatible and also used their services to select auspicious days for performing the ceremonies for the bride and groom, on the basis of the horoscopes. Hence in the past, the couple had almost no say in the matter.

However, the modern Vietnamese wedding traditions allow the girl and the boy to choose their partners. They need to obtain formal permission from the families to their marriage. The groom has to visit the house of the bride with a group of friends or relatives and formally request the parents of the girl for her hand in marriage. You will be told by the natives that this Vietnamese marriage custom is known as Nap thai or cham ngo. This is a speech given by the groom or his family elders requesting the bride’s family for her hand in marriage. The groom then presents the wife with beetal nuts and leaves symbolizing the unbreakable bond of marriage. The family of the bride then makes a formal request with betel leaves and areca nuts to their ancestors at their family altar.


Every family member (including members of the extended family) is expected to participate in the organization and arrangement of the wedding. The van danh or an hoi is the formal introduction of the bride and groom to each other and the future relatives on both sides. This is followed by nap cat, which is an elaboration of the wedding plans by the groom’s family to the bride’s family. The thinh ky is the announcement of the final decisions taken by the bride’s family about the wedding.

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