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Our Wedding Summary


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| Morning Rituals | Church Ceremony | Poolside Reception | Chinese Banquet | Wedding Info |

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morning

The Morning Rituals

On the Big Day, I got up at 7:00am and the hairdresser arrived late at my home 'cos he blew a tire on the highway. At 8:00am the makeup lady arrived to find that my rashes were not as bad as I said they were {started having rashes right after I returned to Hong Kong after 3 months in US, 2 weeks before the wedding). At 8:30am, the bridesmaids arrived and they helped decorate the house with Chinese calligraphy.

At 9:00am, the groomsmen arrived to decorate my dad's car as we used it as the bridal car. According to the Chinese tradition somehow modified by mischievous Hong Kong bridesmaids, Kelvin has to pick me up from my house {this part is tradition} and while doing so must be tortured by my good friends {Hong Kong customs}.

Anyway, in order to see me Kelvin had to:

  1. Make a creative poster that shows his love (not good for an engineer) (he had to put on lipstick and kiss the poster, request from the 'art director [naughty bridesmaid]
  2. Write a poem using my name as the start of each line. (my name has 3 characters so he needs to think up 3 lines) (completed with the help of a non-engineer)
  3. Sing my favourite song (a nice song from the McMug's Yellow Bus)
  4. Do pushups.

At around 10:30am, he finally got to see me and we then served tea to our parents (order all wrong...nobody knew how we should have done it and my parents didn't know either....the good thing is they all drank their tea and gave us 'red packets'!!!)

Then we had to rush back to Kelvin's house because his parents had consulted the 'Chinese Calendar' and said that we had to get back to their house by 11:00pm. The groomsmen followed us with the car but they forgot the way. Kelvin spent the whole journey giving directions over the mobile phone. I thought that was funny.

We got to his house just on time. Served tea to all of his family and close relatives. We then headed for lunch.

| Morning Rituals | Church Ceremony | Poolside Reception | Chinese Banquet | Wedding Info |

church

Our Church Ceremony

The church ceremony was held at a Protestant church with EXTREMELY strict rules. No photography is allowed once the ceremony starts and the videographer couldn't stand up during the ceremony.

We got to the church at 1:00pm and the ceremony starts at 3:00pm. I changed from a Red Chinese †X„T (chi-bao) into a western style wedding gown with lace top and organza dress with white roses sewn randomly on the dress. [This gown holds special meaning for me because my dad designed it for me. ] The makeup lady came and refreshed my makeup and had to go home.

At 3:00pm the ceremony started. My dad gave me away and he was very nervous about it. He held on real tight to my hand when I put my hand into his arm. I thought it was sweet. Our ringbearer and flower girl were great [at 6, the ringbear already told his mom he wanted to marry the flower girl when he first met her...talk about love at first sight].

Then some of our friends showed up with camcorders [very nice of them, but we did not know they were going to tape us] and forgot our warnings and started moving around. The pastor got really mad and told them to go back to their seats. The whole guests were stunned and I was a bit concerned that we have upset the pastor. Kelvin was laughing under his breath 'cos he caught his friend's funny posture when he froze as the pastor reprimanded him.

Anyway, the ceremony went on and our fellowship sang us a beautiful "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring". Then we exchanged our rings with some problems. His ring was too tight and mine was too loose [stress stress did it...]. We were pretending to be wearing them. It was funny also. :)

After the ceremony, we went back to the church to pose for pictures and the pastor instructed us to 'unveil' and exchange rings again. The guests were confused and then when they realized what is happening, they laughed. When we walked down the aisle once more, they applauded again with good spirit.

Then we stood in the sun and took pictures for almost an hour. That's how we realize you can get tan despite a lot of makeup and foundation.

| Morning Rituals | Church Ceremony | Poolside Reception | Chinese Banquet | Wedding Info |

reception

Our Poolside Reception

We got to the reception site on time. The site is a beach resort and we were having our reception by the pool. Little lights decorated the palm trees surrounding the pool and the weather was nice and cool.

I went into the hotel room to freshen up and changed into a blue and black chiffon Chinese Chi-Bau. Instead of putting a few tiny red rose clips on my hair as in the morning or white beads as in the afternoon, my MOH helped me to put 4 or 5 tiny gold ribbons on my hair. During this time, the bridesmaids who were assigned to take care of reception arrangements found out that the site manager was very late in setting up the place. Luckily, non of the guests have noticed the delay as they just started arriving.

We started the cake-cutting at 7:00pm. Our pastor gave a brief sermon as he did not get a chance to do so earlier since we had to do the ceremony at the Protestant church which is one of the legal places where we can get the marriage licence and have the ceremony at the same time.

As it turned out, 32 more people came than we had expected. [See, RSVP doesn't always work. Some people change their mind and some you can't reach on the phone]. We planned for 160. 192 showed up. We cleared out all of the food in the hotel fridges. The reception site isn't really experienced about having so many people so they're understaffed. As a result, there's only 1 line for food and so our guests had to wait in line for a while before getting food. Kelvin and I stood in line and talked with them and tried to entertain them. The groomsmen were also very helpful and they helped to set up extra tables and chairs for the latecomers.

We were afraid people will be bored but they seemed to be enjoying the nice sea breeze and the romantic atmosphere. They did put on the wrong CD once and I don't think everyone enjoyed Italian opera as I did but that was minor, I think... :) Except when William Tell comes on [the official horseracing theme song that the Hong Kong government had chosen]. :)

Some guests had to leave early and most guest left at around 9:00pm. The crazy ones played more tricks on one:

  1. Hung grapes on my neck and blindfolded Kelvin and asked him to eat them.
  2. Asked me to hold my party favour [Ferrero Rocher chocolate in lavendar tulle tied with personalized ribbon and small rose] and asked Kelvin to untie it with his hand bound.
  3. Eat wasabi. [why? don't even ask me...it all started with that stupid TV show...]

At around 11:00pm...the guests all went home. We went back to our hotel room and passed out.

| Morning Rituals | Church Ceremony | Poolside Reception | Chinese Banquet | Wedding Info |

chinese

The Chinese Banquet

:) 2 days later, we gave a Chinese banquet 'cos Kelvin's parents insisted. It turned out to be fun though.

In the morning, I found this huge red patch between my eyes and I knew it was rashes again. At this point, I couldn't care less. I went to the hairstyler and he did my hair. Then I went home to change. Because of traffic, Kelvin and I arrived at the Chinese restaurant real late! Late for our own Chinese banquet? Sounds like us.

His dad got the Cognac and prepared the guest 'cloth' for us. [a big red cloth for guests to sign their name. the wedding date and our names are embroidered] His brother and his uncles were the ushers. The whole family was very helpful that night.

Before the banquet, there's another hour tea-serving and picture-taking. The funny thing is, because these are relatives that even Kelvin has never met before, he had to keep asking his parents whom we were serving tea to as we were supposed to say their name with respect as we present the tea. Some of these are supposedly close kins so he started making faces at me since he's surprised he has never met them before the wedding day.

Then we went on to the 10 course meal. As I don't have any more worries anymore about fitting into dresses, I absolutely pigged out. I wore the Chinese Cheung-Sam [chi-bau] which is the same one I wore on the wedding day morning: red and pink floral patterns on white chiffon. I like the dress and I didn't want to change 4 or 5 times so I didn't bring any other dresses to change into. Since Kelvin's dad knew the guy at the restaurant, the manager kept coming to us and teaching us what to do. He was bewildered as he asked me twice whether I was going to change, I shook my head and continued eating. He must be thinking: talking about etiquette...hey but I'm sure I'm the most satisfied bride food-wise! :)

When shark fin soup was being served, we went over to each table to give toast to our guests and to thank them. After that, the groomsmen tried to play some more tricks on us and we ended up drinking a little bit. Kelvin can't drink because he was going to have his Master thesis presentation the next day so I drank some beer for him. People are bewildered but hey, I didn't waste all my US training after all ! :)

The banquet ended at 10:00pm since it's a weekday. I had to take off all the gold jewelry that his relatives and my relatives gave me so I won't be robbed while going home.

Then we went home and collapsed.

| Morning Rituals | Church Ceremony | Poolside Reception | Chinese Banquet | Wedding Info |

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Made by Mac
Last Updated: Feb 18, 00