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What does ‘Yum Seng’ means for Asian Chinese Traditional wedding ceremony?

For those who have the opportunity to attend a Chinese wedding banquet, there will be a wedding toast – also known as “Yum Seng”. Yum Seng means “Bottoms up!” in Cantonese. I suspect that Mandarin speakers will probably do this too, except say “Gan bei!” 

During the dinner, the newly-weds and their parents will go around to each table with a glass of champagne/wine/non-alcoholic beverage to make a toast. It is customary for the guests at the table where the wedding couple are to stand up and hold their (full) glass. The most important thing to know is that you should save your tonsils/voice for this exercise, as you will be saying cheers together. But our wedding toast isn’t an ordinary one. You will need to say “Yum Seng” as the toast – but the tables can get a bit competitive with one another to see who can say a louder and longer ‘yum seng’. The trick here is to hold the “yum” as long as you can in order to go “Yuuuuuuuuuummmmmmm SENG!”. If you need to breathe while saying “Yum”, take a quick one and keep going “uuuumm” until everyone else stops and says “SENG!”