So how did we celebrate our momentuous occasion? We attended a wedding! Not any ordinary wedding, but the wedding of Alexander Warmenhoven and Hui Yin. Hui yin moved to Holland when she was young and been there ever since. Hui Yin is Agnes's primary school friend and they been keeping in touch ever since via snail mail and even e-mail. Most times I look upon attending weddings as a chore. They are usually a total waste of time (and money). They become quite meaningless and the only reason i attend most times is to give 'face' to the family. In fact saving face is what makes such weddings such a fiasco. The wedding occasion which should be about the couple and their union together, but instead it becomes an occasion for family and relatives to preen and prune. In fact the couple become quite an afterthought in the planning of most weddings.
But this wedding I rather quite enjoyed. It reminds me about what weddings are all about. The bride and the groom. Mostly the bride, but that is a topic for another blog. The fact that i was under-dressed for the occasion was besides the point. I had put on a black pants and a blue short-sleeved shirt. At most weddings that would be par for the course, but at this wedding almost everyone was in evening gowns and suits. Those less predisposed to dressing up came in long sleeved shirts and ties. I felt rather inadequate to say the least. At least I can console myself that I did not come in a polo shirt and jeans.
In fact in retrospect I should have dressed up better. It is often too easy to dress down at such occasions. The Singaporean mindset is to wear as little as possible because Singapore is 'hot and humid'. So when you do dress up people give you curious stares and think you are some weirdo from outer space.
Anyway..back to the wedding. It was in many ways how I envisaged my own wedding to be. There was no excesses or extravagance. Everything made sense. The music was tasteful. No Final Countdown or Kitaro during the grand entrance! The room consisted of 11 tables which I think is about right. The problem is that at many weddings we tend to be more focussed on the number of guest rather than the quality. There is even the amount of hongbaos you can receive to consider when deciding who to invite. And when you designate who should sit where, you must always bear in mind any animosity between your guests. So it becomes one big jig saw puzzle. A logistics nightmare to say the least. You have to not only ensure that everyone at the table will not kill each other but also make sure that the so-called important people are nearer to the stage! *groan*
The food served was almost typical chinese wedding dinner fare. But I must say the quality was better than most other weddings I been to. It helped that mnay of the people who went for the food tasting 3 days earlier are in the F&B line so little if anything got past them. And all done in 3 days!
Since the couple and their families live in Holland there was a european flair to the whole occasion. There was even dancing. I love that. I am scared as hell to dance. But I think at my wedding we will dance..dance...dance...
And unlike most weddings you attend the guest actually danced and had a ball of a time, no pun intended. Even the asians in attendance joined in. There was even an impromptu rendition of Lady Marmalade performed by the bride and her 3 lady friends.
Even after the wedding dinner proper was over, Agnes and I were fettered to stay back to chit chat. So we were there until past 12 am. Which is not something we do often. Cinderella has to be back before the bewitching hour so that curtails any extended nights out for us.
I must say I rather enjoyed the wedding despite it being on our anniversary. I would not mind attending a few more of those, but I am not holding my breath waiting....
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