Crossing a Threshold

To make up for my annual Christmas break, I've been literally buried in work and on-calls lately trying to catch up. Already up to my eyeballs in paperwork and patients - so much so that I had to beg off from attending my cousin's wedding. A pity since it would have been fun enough to see the crazy lot of them.

Turns out it didn't matter much since my wacky cousins - undaunted by my disappearance - still managed to drag me to the party with the unwitting aid of modern technology. Obsessive cam-whores the lot of them so you can imagine the number of Nikons at work that night. From the endless pixels taken on their cameras - from every possible angle and shot, it certainly made me feel as if I was actually there that very night!

Lispy Lori's elder - the one we all call Bitchy Barb - was the one tying the knot. Turns out she finally found the man she could club and drag home by the hair.


Gay wedding?
But rather than giving in without a fight, the poor groom was made to jump through several humiliating hoops before bringing his bride home. Quite a novelty in my family since we've never had this tradition before. Unlike my other more easygoing female cousins, Barb obviously wanted to give the fella a hard time storming her ivory tower.

I found it a lil crass though. Honestly I find that the tradition of fetching the bride from her home has morphed into a terrifyingly nightmarish reality game show ( akin to the Amazing Race! ) with the formidable bridesmaids tossing out nigh-impossible challenges and endless roadblocks to the pitiful groom. From the more mundane antics such as singing juvenile verses in praise of the bride to the queasier tasks of downing improbable concoctions of wasabi, tabasco and raw eggs.

Then there was the time a troop of groomsmen were forced to wax their hairy legs before storming the gates.

Frankly I'd have walked away :)

But it's obviously true love since even the glorious sight of Bitchy Barb in her Cantopop-inspired wedding dress wasn't enough to scare him away. Though I swear I saw him flinch a little when the glare from her scary pink sequins hit him.

Honestly though, family weddings make me a bit apprehensive these days. As usual with the coming nuptials, there's the inevitable twenty questions about my marital status. Seems like everyone else in the family ( and my mother ) is desperately anxious to auction me off to the highest bidder on the marriage mart. Of course some of my cousins already know and suspect the reasons behind my remaining a swinging bachelor - thanks to the help of the ever-intrusive facebook.

A few have even given me an inquisitive poke or two regarding my obviously public relationship.


Gay wedding?
Unwanted familial interrogations aside though, lately I've found myself feeling that tiny bit of resentment about the marriage business. With all my cousins getting hitched one after the other in perfect sequence, it's hard not to feel sidelined. Not because I don't want to partake in the solemn rites of marriage but because I can't. Despite how wildly tolerant the folks in my generation can be, I doubt I'd be able to undergo a tea ceremony introducing my spouse to the family anytime soon.

Not unless they're drunk enough to miss the all-important fact that it's a man.