Yes folks, I was able to fly over the hump and get married! I know, it's been over a month since my last post, but the last few weeks leading up to the wedding was busy. Not hectic, but busy - both at work and at home. Thus, I had little time or energy to blog. After the wedding, we went off to our honeymoon and spent 2 weeks on a nice, beautiful beach! Whoo hoo! Boy did I need that vacation!
Anyways, to recap some of the events leading up to the wedding, I had my bachelorette party the Friday night before the wedding, completed the Ketubah, ironed my white dress, finished sewing my last dress, printed out escort cards, sewed the garter, and left explicit instructions with instructional photos and the day-of timeline with our vendors. I thought I might come off as a little control-freakish and paranoid when I handed the photos and instructions to the vendor, along with a very detailed timeline, but the vendors all looked at them and said, "This is perfect!" My hubby got the impression that most vendors tend to play more guessing games with other brides, or sometimes brides didn't put as much thought into their timelines and/or instructions. I did a lot of research, paid attention to details and allowed the vendors to use their best judgment as well. My attitude towards the vendors was for them to tell me what they need from me in terms of general direction and for me to let them do their jobs and show off their skills.
Most of my wedding stuff was pretty straight-forward, standard wedding stuff. That minimized any confusion that the vendors might have with anything weird. Special instructions that had to be done included putting a rose on a reserved chair in the front row for my hubby's father, who passed away a few years ago, memorial pillar "candles" for his father, his grandmother and my grandfather, and placing our raccoon, Rocky, around our guest sign-in tree to look like he's signing the tree. I also wanted the baker to put butterflies that I had hand-wired into the cake, but apparently the baker forgot. Not having the butterflies was a disappointment, but overall, the day went great! I must hand it to the Maitre'D for keeping me on schedule and making sure that my hubby and I were properly fed. He and the waitstaff kept bringing us food, which was really helpful! I think we would have eaten much less if they hadn't done that. So thanks to them, we actually got to eat at our own wedding!
Basically, the day went like this:
Spent the night before in my parents' house, as per Chinese tradition, and woke up early to get my hair and makeup done. As I was getting made up, my hubby made the traditional journey to my parents' house to pick up his bride. We didn't do the bride price thing or the games, so when I was all made up, he and I left for the venue around 9am. We arrive at the venue at around 10:40AM, which was ahead of schedule.
I go to change into my white dress and when the photographer and his assistant arrived, we did an hour of formal photos with just me and my hubby. Once the bridal party and family arrived and we did an hour of formal photos with them. Then I changed into my purple dress and we signed the ketubah and marriage license, and headed outside for the tea ceremony.
My mother brought her own tea and pillows for me and my hubby to kneel on, and the venue provided the china and the setup. One of my bridesmaids handed us the tea to serve to our parents, who would take a sip and then give us a red envelope. Once the tea ceremony was done, I headed back to change back into the white dress for the marriage ceremony.
Once I was properly gussied up, I headed down to where we were lining up. The Maitre'D was waiting and was directing everything, which made everything so smooth and easy! The processional was led by my hubby's mom and stepdad, who looked so sweet as they walked down the aisle. Both my mom and my dad escorted me and it was really awesome to see my guests clapping to my entrance music, which was Love Me Do by the Beatles. The ceremony ran a bit longer than I'd like, but that's partially my fault as I okayed it with the Rabbi and with my hubby. My feet were killing me in last few minutes! The shoes I wore are actually very comfortable, but apparently, not so fun to stand still in for 30 minutes. There were a couple of memorable moments that stood out for me. One was when I sipped from the Kiddish cup, I said, "Mmmm, that's good!" So when the rabbi heard that, she said, "Yeah? Okay, then have another sip!" So both my hubby and I had a second sip. Lol! Another memorable moment was when hubby's mom was doing her reading, she teared up and almost made me tear up too! I also had to fake some of the hebrew parts because I didn't know/memorize the words and the Rabbi commented how on well I faked it. Hahaha! Once we were pronounced man and wife, we left the ceremony to do a few more family photos and then on to cocktail hour! On the way to the bar area, I dropped off my bouquet and picked up the toss bouquet.
So that's when the real mingling began. At the end of cocktail hour, we did the bouquet and garter toss. Hubby wanted to use his teeth to take off my garter and the MC asked about hubby using his teeth, but I loudly proclaimed this was a PG show and there will be no teeth! Lol! Hubby's sister caught the bouquet and one of his groomsmen caught the garter. The whole affair was entertaining, but not out of the ordinary.
Once everyone was being directed into the reception area, I changed into my red qipao. Hubby was waiting outside the reception entrance and when I arrived, we were introduced and did our first dance. Others were invited to dance once we had a few moments on the dance floor to ourselves and I honestly thought this was going to be a pretty shy crowd, but people really did get up and dance! It was great! I don't remember the exact sequence after that, but I do remember the Maitre'D and wait staff making sure we got food to eat and time to eat. I remember the parent dances, which was done to Sunrise, Sunset from Fiddler on the Roof, and I remember lots of hugs and dancing! After the cake cutting, I changed into my last dress, which I sewed myself. That's about the time when everyone started to say their goodbyes, which was fine with me and my hubby because we had been up since at least 5AM that day!
Once we had everything packed up, we walked to the building over, where we had a complimentary night in one of their rooms. Yes, the venue we picked also had a hotel on their grounds, which made them a very full-service venue! We spent that evening reading cards, opening gifts, cleaning up, decompressing and then sleeping. All in all, it was a good day!
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