A Wedding To Remember

A handful of people knew about my 2 day trip for one of my brother's wedding last weekend.

Its a strange scenario for non resident Philippine-Chinese participants, when attending a Filipino-Chinese wedding in the Philippines. In some cultures, weddings are first and foremost, a close family and friend affair, and reception ends up with a small room of 6-10 tables composed of the bride and groom's closest friends and relatives. Small, close, short and sweet. Almost everyone will know everybody, and almost everyone will know the bride and groom very well.

On the other hand, for the Filipino-Chinese community in the Philippines, the wedding reception is a huge affair - normally comprising of huge extended families's friends and business partners, present, past or otherwise... So it is not a surprise that the bride and groom themselves will not exactly know the guests personally. In a sea of faces, only a handful of tables will have a direct relation with either bride or groom, and the rest are comprised of others - like grandparent's long time friends, parents business partners, one's sister's friends, one's brother's friends (never mind if they not personally met your soon-to-be-married sibling) .. the works. Its no surprise that wedding receptions can be slightly a bit cold and awkward. Besides, if you were the bride or groom, you would wonder how you are going to share your happiness with people who don't even care what you look like, or care less about how you met your soon-to-be lifelong partner. Sometimes it can even be viewed as a nasty, embarrassing affair.

Despite that, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that that didn't stop my brother and my new sister in law from enjoying their time, and doing their best to share their happiness to a sea of unfamiliar and unknown faces and names.

True, they pretty much had a format much like the rest of the Chinese Filipino community. A well prepared, extended entourage that accommodated a participant from each of the couples' extended families, a wedding at a Catholic church with the bride with at least a 6 feet trail, releasing a pair of white doves, the usual Chinese family tea welcoming ceremonies, a hotel reception, the standard variety show-like reception iterinary with matching host, sing and entertainment, the huge guest list, bouquet and garter pairing, picture taking and a great send off for the guests. It was the standard formula for a Filipino-Chinese wedding, no doubt about it.

What made me extremely happy and proud was the fact that many things that could've been just passed off as normal and standard, following the typical wedding equation, but in fact, despite that, my brother and sister in law did their best to make it as unique and as perfect as possible.

The reception area didn't go initially as planned. There were a couple of table arrangements that didn't exactly meet my new sister in law's expectations, and I could tell that she was disappointed. It is a special day for her, after all. But the whole thing ended up ok by the time the guests arrived. The hotel ballroom was wonderful, and it was still beautiful, despite the unforseen circumstances.

The entourage dresses were surprisingly nice. I never would've expected that lavender and strong, bright solid yellow would match, but the designer knew what he was doing and it really came off picturesque. Additionally, it seems that the couple made it a point to differentiate each and every entourage participant, despite that they were within the same classification: normally the secondary sponsors would have the same type of dresses, but they didn't. I had a halter gown, my half spanish cousin was in a spaghetti strapped dress, and the veil was wearing a simple sleeved dress.

As for my sister in law's wedding gown, a tube of silky white with slight adornments decorating the tips of the gown, it was nice, simple and elegant. I love things that are simple and elegant, everybody does. It's just like love: Its never complex or complicated by its very basic nature, except that in truth, simplicity is always the fundamental thing that makes things complex. Thats what makes simple things so beautiful.

They also hired an amazing video editor that edited the morning's church wedding into a beautiful montage of faces and events... not the usual set of pictures and videos showing exceptionally boring walkoff towards the altar of the church of the entourage, or a horrible timing of fade in and fade outs between clips and scenes, but a criss cross motley of clip that was transformed into a full length video that could be something to be remembered by for a very long time. Its difficult to put it into words, but trust me, the video was worthy of becoming a very entertaining MTV video being shown on tv.

The food was a very tasteful combination - delicately cooked salmon and tuna with wasabi and shoyu dressed salad accompaniment, mushroom based ragout with duck liver ravioli soup, very nicely cooked sea bass with leeks and seasoned mashed potatoes, a sorbet, slightly roasted chicken in gravy sauce, a serving of fruit tart. Frankly, I gobbled up the first three and ended up being too full to finish the others. The sea bass was extremely good, by the way (I'll stop here now, this is not a food editorial)... would've gone for second servings.

During the reception, I loved the way they set up the single's game, too. Normally the bride throws the bouquet, and the single girl who catches the bouquet will be paired off to the guy who will catch the garter that would be also thrown to a crowd of single men, and they'll be paired off and forced have a pictorial, and and even ghastly so, a smack on the cheek or lips. These people have got to be kidding to expect a pair of strangers to kiss in front of a crowd of 500. Instead, they had a set pairing of single girl and guy, paired to each other, and they would end up playing a multiple choice game that would test their knowledge on the wedding couple's history. It was fun, and they even get a set of Starbucks coupons upon winning. And if I remember right, no kisses :)

The most wonderful of the whole day was actually the kiss. Any one of their kisses. I loved the way my brother executed each and every single kiss by simply swooping down unabashedly towards my sister in law and giving a very romantic kiss in front of all these strangers. Not being coy or embarrassed about being uncomfortable displaying affection to the people around them, but just nice, sweet and truthful.

To be honest, all these wedding points I've just mentioned didn't really matter, except for the last one. Do away with everything else, and I believe that their kiss will still hold the whole reception together, by itself.

That's what the wedding is for, any way. Its not the singles game, its not the nice food, the great singers, the beautiful dresses, the bridal gifts, or the spectacular venue and backdrop. Its a celebration of a couple's joining and a life ahead together. It's their moment, and not ours. We're just there to share in their happiness and give them our blessings...

And I'm happy to say, they've shared the full extent of their happiness to us, sealed with a single, truthful kiss.

A very big congratulations to my brother and my sister in law... I'm proud and thankful to be both your sister and sister-in-law, and I'm glad to say that you've made your wedding day a memorable one for all of us, especially after all the toil and hardwork that you've put to preparing it. I hope that every day for the rest of your lives, you will be as happy as you were on that special day, and be as passionate towards each other as you were then, as you spend the rest of your lives together in marriage and in the eyes of God as your ultimate witness.