My Big Fat Chinese Wedding

Judging by the ensuing events of this weekend, my budding ideas for a dream wedding certainly wouldn't mesh with some of the more colourful notions of my ... dare I say it.. provincial cousins. Don't get me wrong. Certainly not a culture snob, I enjoyed myself insanely this weekend but I fear they wouldn't say the same at my far more sedate, potentially more dull wedding. Faint stringed instruments in the background, cream coloured tablecloth lined with gold borders and staid, civilized chatter over wine and cheese would certainly bore some of my aunts ( certainly my uncles ) into a soporific stupor.

Somehow or rather like any other Chinese family, I think they'd prefer mindless insanity, deafening cacophony and exceedingly late arrivals. Let's see, this is what they would expect for a dream wedding.

1) Disorganized chaos as bewildered guests run helter skelter all over the hall in search of nonexistent numbered seats, occasionally battling it out over the more coveted hall positions - away from the ear-splitting speakers, the freezing air-cond draft and the none-too-steady waiters ( imagine sparkly haired aunties in their best flashy cheongsams bitchslapping each other with their beaded handbags )

2) A slick mustachioed master of ceremonies who resembled nothing less than a flashy circus ringleader waving his beribboned baton and top hat

3) Scantily dressed nymphette Lolitas belting out the latest Cantonese pop fare loud enough to wake the dead while gyrating in sexually suggestive moves that would make Shakira proud ( and would make their parents cringe in embarassment, I'm sure ) - not to mention emulating the Dance of the Seven Veils as their scanty ensemble became ( impossibly! ) increasingly revealing throughout the night

4) Drunken Hawaiian-shirt clad uncles stumbling about in alcoholic daze as they toured the crowded hall waving their cognac bottles with seeming amiability - before the whole lot fled to the men's room later during dessert to collectively upchuck the vile poison

5) Mismatched orange plastic tableware with the most garishly scarlet tablecloth ( certainly the stuff of Martha Stewart's darkest nightmares while on the lam ) - not forgetting the interesting melange of conflicting tastes after using the same plate throughout an eight-course Chinese dinner

6) Acne-speckled, underaged waiters scurrying about in stained t-shirts tossing towering food platters onto the dining tables with little regard to fishball trauma or curry splatter

For Chrissakes, the erstwhile groom read law in London but I guess even erudite Brit scholars couldn't rid him of the peculiar notion that karaoke and a wedding dress goes together.

Still, the convivial company certainly made up for it though my boisterous cousins and I had to resort to primitive sign language ( fortunate enough for my poor laryngitis-stricken cousin ) since the speakers were blaring out Cantonese hip hop that drowned out any civilized attempts to communicate. And we certainly weren't going to strain our voices yelling across the table like uncouth fishwives in the market!


Groomsmen changing before the big day
And btw, no hunky best men around ( and believe me I looked really really really hard ) so I had to spend the time drowning in cheap cognac dreaming of wicked bachelor nights attended by naughty groomsmen with liberal sexual habits and the loose morals of alleycats :P Reality never is as raunchy as a porn vid.