On our invitations and at the bottom of the link bar on the left you'll see a Chinese symbol.  Each half of the symbol is the standard character for happiness, written "hsi" or "xi."  Two "hsi" graphs together represents the wish for the two young newlyweds to have happiness together and is symbolic of their union.  The double happiness graph is a special Chinese character used for marital happiness and is not used in regular Chinese writing or printing.

Here is the story of how it originated:

In the ancient Tang Dynasty, there was a student who was on the way to the capital to attend the national final examination, in which the top scorers would be selected as the ministers in the court.  Unfortunately, he fell ill halfway as he was passing through a mountain village.  An herbalist doctor and his daughter took him into their house and treated him well.  He recovered quickly due to the father and the daughter's good care, and over the course of his recovery, he and the girl fell in love. When he had to leave, he found it hard to say good-bye, and so did she, so the girl wrote down the right hand part of an antithetical couplet for the student to match while he was away:

"Green trees against the sky in the spring rain while the sky set off the spring trees in the obscuration."

He told her he would match it as soon as he had finished his examinations and resumed his journey to the capital city.

In the examination the young man was one of the highest scorers and was noticed by the emperor.  As the final stage of the examinations, the highest scorers were interviewed by the emperor.  As luck would have it, he was asked by the emperor to finish the right hand part of a couplet.  The emperor wrote:

"Red flowers dot the land in the breeze's chase while the land colored up in red after the kiss."

The young man realized immediately the right half of the girl's couplet was the perfect fit for the emperor's half, so he gave the girl's part as the answer without hesitation.  The emperor was delighted to see his half of the couplet so skillfully and harmoniously matched that he made the young man a minister in the court and allowed him to pay a visit home before taking the post.  The young man met the girl happily at home and told her the emperor's couplet.  They were soon married, and for the wedding, the couple doubled the Chinese character meaning "happy" together on a red piece of paper and put it on the wall to express the happiness for the two events.