Good Day to Marry

"Good Day to Marry" is a poetic photo book of wedding portraits featuring three Chinese queer couples, co-created by artist Yu Zoe Cui and photographer Nandal Seo. It reclaims the visual language of marriage as an act of love and resistance.

Good Day to Marry is an independent photobook exploring Chinese queer intimacy through wedding portraits. Shot in soft, surreal settings, the project features three female queer couples and reimagines traditional wedding photography as a space for personal storytelling, poetic resistance, and tender visibility. In a cultural context where same-sex marriage remains illegal and queer love often erased, the work serves as both an offering and a quiet act of defiance—a visual archive of what could be.

The book was first printed in June 2025 for a soft prelaunch edition of just 35 copies. Designed in the style of a spiral-bound calendar, the book references the Chinese “黄历” (traditional almanac), which is commonly used to choose auspicious wedding dates. By reclaiming this culturally significant format, Good Day to Marry asks: What if queer couples could also choose their “good day” to marry? What if the rituals of love and union were made accessible to all?

This limited edition was self-funded and produced as part of a broader body of work that includes community collage workshops, participatory art-making, and public discussions on queer love, marriage, and visibility in the Chinese diaspora. The book’s portraits have been shortlisted for the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and have sparked ongoing interest in bringing the work to a wider audience through larger-scale publishing.