Central Park Wedding Photos -- The Show Must Go On

As mentioned here a few times in the past, Chinese immigrants from Fujian have developed a very interesting subculture in New York. New York is the center of the Fujian-American universe, as New York is the primary, if not sole entry point for this mostly undocumented group. Even if an immigrant finds a Chinese restaurant job somewhere else in the Midwest, East or South, they'll still return to Manhattan Chinatown, whether to look for a different job opportunity in another city, or just to hang out on their days off. A vast networks of buses transport Fujianese in the eastern half of the United States to and from New York without any need for identification.

Another reason why Fujianese immigrants travel to New York for is weddings. On Monday evenings, and to a lesser extent Tuesday nights, large Manhattan Chinatown restaurants, particularly in the Little Fuzhou area east of the Bowery, are packed with wedding banquets. Why Monday or Tuesday? Because this is the only day that most Fujianese restaurant workers get the day off. Early in the day, the bridal party travels to Central Park to take a gallery of elegant wedding photos to send to the relatives back home. Fujianese couples, usually not residents of New York, can be seen dressed up in their wedding finest, so common that this phenomenon has been well documented in the American press.

So what happens if the big day you planned happens to coincide with this weekend's blizzard, which as one wag stated, will result in no New Yorker ever dreaming of a White Christmas again? Well, you go ahead just as planned.