He had a wild reaction to me wanting to include some Chinese things in the wedding…. Hoping AM here can help me understand?

First of all I’ll be referring to my partner as my husband even though I’m talking about a wedding, that’s because we are already legally married but just haven’t had our wedding yet. We eloped in advance but are planning an actual wedding for next year.

My husband and I got into a big argument where he quite literally called me a racist (which made me cry because I was so offended lol) and I’m having a lot of trouble understanding what I did wrong and I’m hoping maybe people here can help? I WANT to understand and want clarity and don’t want to upset him again.

My husband is Chinese and was born in Shanghai. The place we live has one of the highest concentrations of Chinese people outside of China, to the point where every single store has signs in Chinese as well as English, many businesses are Chinese only, and his school classmates were almost entirely other Chinese or Asian kids (he has mentioned having “one or two” white or brown kids in his classes max). You can live here your entire life and not speak English because you’ll never not have a place that speaks Chinese. So he grew up very much with “his own people” so to speak, and has never had to feel like an “outsider”. He speaks fluent Shanghainese and mandarin. His last job was at a Chinese business where they did most of their business in Chinese.

I’m writing all this to say that my husband is very, very integrated with Chinese culture still. Even being in this country he’s still completely immersed in it. His parents barely speak English (his mother speaks a tiny bit but his father doesn’t speak a word) and speak only Chinese at home as well.

My husband has happily (and by HIS own suggestion) Chinese-ified my life. He helped me learn mandarin and is helping me with Shanghainese now. He made sure all my cooking spices were replaced early when we started dating, he cooks and eats mostly Chinese and Asian meals, and calls my food “white people food”. He even made a big deal about trying “white people food” with me that he’s never had before (pancakes and casserole are an example). He puts up decorations for CNY. He gives me red envelopes. He talks about feng shui in the house. He laughs about having his “first ever white friends” when we hang out with my friend group, even saying to them at one point “you guys are my only white friends haha”. He jokes about me being the “best non-Chinese Chinese wife” and tells me to “be more Chinese about it” when I’m thinking about a big purchase or something.

So when discussing what our wedding is going to look like next year, I excitedly suggested some small Chinese traditions we could incorporate into the wedding and he lost it. He called me racist (he later said he “wasn’t being serious” about this comment but it still hurt) for thinking he’d want that. To be clear, I was not suggesting a full on traditional Chinese wedding. What I wanted to do was incorporate both our cultures into the wedding. I am Slavic and wanted to bring some of my culture into the wedding and thought it would be a little one sided if I was only my traditions and not his. I actually envy him for being more connected to his culture than I am even though we are both immigrants.. it’s not like I get to live in a city full of my own people and food and language!!

After he calmed down he basically said that he can’t believe I’d just assume that he would want that in the wedding and that he’s actually NOT that connected to his culture at all and doesn’t know why I would think otherwise. Guys, I almost fell on the floor in shock because of well… everything I’ve said above. Not connected to his culture since when???

I love my husband. I didn’t want to offend him or hurt him. But I cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME figure out what I did that was so wrong. Of course if he doesn’t want anything Chinese in the wedding we won’t have it. But I’m hurt that he reacted that way and called me a racist (seriously I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about it). He’s now saying he knows I “had no bad intentions” but that he would like a fully western wedding please.

Is there anyone here who can provide some insight on to this??? I don’t know what happened or what I did wrong but I’m so so so so sad :(