Friday, May 02, 2003
Wedding Fever
Yesterday marked one month before the wedding. Bridal magazines have this habit of giving you a schedule of things that should be done by certain dates. Unfortunately, they don't add in the miscellaneous but time consuming things that you have to do and if they do, they never tell you how long it takes for all this to be done.
I discovered that in the last week.
Let's see, the wedding-y things I did last week. Here's a list. I shall elaborate further down in the entry.
1) I had to get fitted for my kebaya...TWICE
2) I had to go for a food tasting
3) I had to write a letter to the traffic police
4) I had to pick up 20 boxes of cake that would be delivered to relatives.
5) Although I am the bride and
Packrat the groom, we helped his brother deliver the "DOWRY" to my parents. This included a roast flank of beast (which is supposed to symbolise virginity!), some oranges (prosperity!) and a cash gift ( A token amount of money given to the parents of the bride for having brought her up!). I now officially feel like a cow at a cattle show.
6) I had to present said cakes to relatives at a luncheon that was called a "bridal shower"..I cringe as I type this.
7) I had to send said cakes to the relatives who could not attend aforementioned "bridal shower" Cringe.
8) I have had to scrounge up left over invitation cards because my mother does not have enough.
Ok. So yes, in the last four days, I have done 8things. 8 things only? Well, let me assure you that these 8 things take more time than they ever let on to take.
First, the kebaya.
That took 2 consecutive nights. The first night, we went about 9 and did not get home till almost midnight. And, not only that, the kebaya did not fit and my mother and her friend were merrily trying on kebayas as if they were in a shopping centre in the middle of the afternoon. That wasn't the worst part. The worst part was when my kebaya DID NOT fit and the lady had to pin the sarong in to make it fit. After that, she merrily yanked off the sarong, impaling me in two different places. One of the two places was an artery in my groin so YOUCH!!!! It's still bruised. I think it made my brother's night though.
We had to go a second night because my mother had insisted on getting my kebaya made in Indonesia and this lady had specially flown out to fit me. So there we went again. This time, no pins, but we didn't finish till past midnight and I never realised how much Chinatown looked like North Carlton in the middle of the night. If I let my imagination run, I would have ducked at the first sound of a car back firing. Yes, that seedy.
Well, at least I have my kebaya now. On Saturday, I FINALLY get to fit my wedding and evening gown. Something I've been waiting for since last August!
2) Food Tasting.
It's tradition that before the wedding, you try the food that is to be served at the wedding. The purpose of this is two fold. One, you need to know if your guests are going to be served crap and if they are, then, we need to rectify it as much as possible before the wedding. Two, as bride and groom, it is tradition that you DO NOT get to eat during the dinner, so YOUR wedding dinner, the one you can really sit down, eat and enjoy is held a month earlier and disguised as the "Food Tasting Dinner".
That was the same night as the kebaya fitting.
I shall now skip the traffic police and go on to the cakes.
Yes, this is another Chinese tradition. Officially, all relatives are supposed to be presented with a box of cake and invitation card. I don't know why. I guess it's only good manners. Anyway, Dan's parents decided to make it easier and gather everyone in one place so that we didn't need to travel round the island sending them out. That was fine, but it did feel at certain points that we were being presented for inspection. And if that wasn't tiring enough, we had to go off after that to deliver the remaining cards and cakes to the recalcitrant relatives. All in all, our day ended rather late and we were rather delirious.
I told Packrat yesterday that it was so easy to forget ourselves in all this. When I stop and think about, all these things have little to do with our wedding but is still necessary. Sometimes, I miss him in this whole process. There hasn't been a day in the last week or so where we could just hang out and do our own thing and just talk. Everything has been wedding related in one way or another. No wonder people say it's such a strain- the lead up to the wedding.
We are however, very determined to find some time this weekend to do non-wedding related things. Over and Above all this, we are still a couple and we want to go and do couple-y things. But somewhere in this weekend, I need to do five piles of history marking and one pile of English.
So, with that in mind, I shall end, what is on record, my longest entry ever.
Later.
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