In Wedding Date Selection 101 (Part 1), my objective was to drum into my audience the need for the right attitude towards Wedding Date selection. This can briefly be summarised as COMPROMISE IS THE KEY. If you aren’t prepared to bend a little bit to get a good day for what is arguably the most important date in your life, then really, dispense with the notion of getting a good date. Fly by the seat of your pants, and do it sans the “auspiciousness” of the good date. In any case, a good date is NOT about auspiciousness, it is about having energies that are suitable for a particular activity on the day you are commencing that activity.

So at this point, I’m assuming that if you’re reading this, you’re willing to make some adjustments or compromises like not having your wedding all on one day or having your legal marriage ceremony on a weekday, to cater to the needs of a good date.

Now, an essential part of obtaining for yourself a good date to get hitched, is to first understand how a Wedding Date Selection SHOULD be done. This way, you will know when you are getting a PERSONALISED DATE SELECTION vs GENERIC DATE SELECTION, and thus, be certain you are getting a PERSONALISED GOOD DATE, vs an ORDINARY GOOD DATE.

Okay, some big words used there so let me just define the parameters.

What is a PROPER DATE SELECTION and how does it differ from a GENERIC DATE SELECTION?

A Generic Date Selection means the criteria for selection is something that covers a large pool of individuals – a sort of lowest common denominator. A simple example of a Generic Date Selection is a date selection that is just based on the days marked out as Auspicious in the Tong Shu. (usually marked in, ta-da, RED). A slightly better version of a Generic Date Selection is one that is done using only the Year of Birth of the two individuals who want to get married.

In both these instances, the date that you get is potentially good for you and your spouse to get married.

Along with about sixty million other people who want to get hitched in the same year as you, and also the other umpteen million people born in the same year as you, and your spouse-to-be.

A Generic Date Selection is in essence, just about picking out date that is considered a GENERALLY GOOD DATE for marriage or activities of this nature. And it is a ORDINARY GOOD DATE, a date that technically everyone and everyone can use.

In reality, Generic Good Dates are not always particularly good, and in some instances, it can actually be unfavourable or potentially very negative to the married couple because that particular date does not gel with the BaZi of the to-be-hitched couple. It’s a bit like buying general shampoo – it works on most people’s hair, but some people have a bad reaction, some people don’t get bouncy and glossy, and some people see no difference.

By contrast, a PROPER DATE SELECTION should yield a PERSONALISED GOOD DATE. (I say should because that is premised on the assumption that you use a qualified Date Selection sifu).

A PERSONALISED GOOD DATE is effectively, a wedding date that that only you and your future spouse can use. The only other instance where someone could use that date, is if they were born on the same day, month, year and hour as you, and chose to marry someone who was born on the same day, month, year and hour as your spouse-to-be. In short, they share your BaZi, and they are marrying someone who has the same BaZi as your spouse-to-be.

It’s an exclusive date dahlinks, with an exclusive hour to go with it. (if the date selection leaves out the right hour, then technically it’s not a thorough job).

Between a generic good date which everyone else and their dog can use, and a date that is special to only you and your significant other, I think it’s fairly self-explanatory which date is obviously going to be the better date, from a Qi standpoint. Why wear a common designer brand when you can have bespoke tailoring with a monogram to boot correct?

The Date Selection Kaiten Belt

Like all services, there are mass-market products, and more exclusive products. If you happen to fall into the ‘nice but not that important’ category when it comes to getting a good wedding date, then settle for the Generic Good Date. If on the other hand, you want to leave nothing to chance, then go for the Personalised Good Date, but be prepared for some compromise in order to accommodate the demands of the date.

Now, let’s assume you’re prepared to settle for a Generic Good Date – how do you find one? The cheap answer is to buy Joey Yap’s Tong Shu Calendar. And no, I do not make a buck out of recommending it. I recommend it because

a) it looks like a normal calendar and thus is not intimidating or alien to those who do not read Chinese

b) simple representative symbols are used (wedding ring – DUH) to tell you the generic good dates and generic bad dates for marriage which mean picking a date is easy

c) you have 12 months worth of dates to chose from

d) with some effort – by that I mean reading Joey’s book “Personal Date Selection” and working with the calendar, you can actually select a slightly better quality Generic Wedding Date for yourself.

If you actually put the effort into option (d), you’ll probably pick a date that is better than some date given to you those wedding day hangers-on/busybodies (Tai Kam Che in Cantonese) and you will probably arrive at the same conclusion as the RM50 lai see date selections that you get on Petaling Street.

Let’s say you want to have no part in this Generic business – only the best for yourself and your future spouse, leave nothing to chance on this business of marriage (advisable if this is your second marriage, or your spouse’s second married, or your past history with relationships can best be described as ‘checkered’). Then you need to seek out a professional Date Selection sifu.

The professional Date Selection sifu will only do Date Selections although a proper BaZi consultant should also be able to select wedding dates. Feng Shui consultants can also select wedding dates, but this is usually only the case if they are also BaZi consultants (which they should be, but sometimes are not – a subject of another post).

In such an instance, the Date Selector will need to have the BaZi of both parties, and preferably as wide a window as possible for choosing a good date. Six months is usually a good window, and please, no demanding weekends. The Date Selector will attempt to accomodate this as best as possible normally anyway (we know all about the bridezillas) and you can be assured you will not be asked to turn up at the marriage bureau or church or temple at 2am in the morning. Date Selectors are pragmatic individuals too and they understand the need for 12 hours beauty sleep before the big day!

The date should also come with a stipulation of a time in which the legal marriage ceremony (signing of the documents, license or register) must take place.

Okay – maybe I don’t need THHAAATTTT Good a Date.

Hmmm, see my point in Part 1 about how most people don’t have the backbone to really commit to a good date?

In all honesty, it is a lot of rigmarole. It is accommodating a factor which to some people, is incomprehensible at best, superstitious nonsense at worst, and just a tiresome tedious cultural tick-box somewhere in the middle. And if you can’t be bothered, or you’re not concerned about this (marriage is just a ‘word’, not a state of my relationship), then don’t bother ALL THE WAY.

The annoying relatives won’t know if you fake it. And your parents won’t know if you just say, ya ya, some old bearded dude, or white haired auntie, said it was a good date. And as long as you don’t pick an OBVIOUS date which most people associate with unnecessary negativity (ie: Hungry Ghost Festival), you will get away with this.

And save yourself the inconvenience.

Personally, I try to make use of good personalised dates for all my important key activities, from business to personal endeavours of significance. And as far as I am concerned, my willingness to accommodate a little inconvenience means I’m moving ahead with a strategic advantage. Marriage obviously does not seem to be something that one would look for a strategic advantage in, but it certainly can be important in the event both parties have BaZi’s that indicate relationship challenges and difficulties. One of my oft-standard replies for people with BaZi charts that indicate relationship complexities is to recommend they ensure they get married on a good day.

No, it does not eliminate the problems (and if you are thinking that a good date functions as some kind of cosmic chastity belt, or universal cheating deterrent, think again.). But it will ensure that the relationship has less obstacles in it’s way, and that the parties will at least get off on a good footing as far as their new life together goes.

The expensive roundabout way of figuring out if you need a good date is to have a BaZi consult. If all is well in you and your spouse’s charts, then covering your bases is less important. If however there are obvious issues with compatibility, then a good date is certainly something that will go a long way towards minimising negative outcomes. And usually, when parties know there is an issue in their relationship that is likely to crop up – guess what? THEY TRY HARDER. With each other, and with taking no chances. And in the end, it probably works out that little bit better because of that.