for those who do not know, Iceman’s Malaysian so we decided that to be fair to relatives on both sides, we’re going to have 2 wedding dinners. unfortunately, things sort of hit a snag ‘cos Iceman’s dad, being a very traditional person, feels that the dinner in JB ought to be the main dinner (in terms of size), and it also needs to be held before the SG dinner. (hey, initially, his parents thought it’ll be good enough just to have a dinner in JB & ferry my relatives over but Iceman understands that it’s important to me to have something for my family & friends in SG so he insisted on 2 dinners).
to me, whichever dinner is the "main" one doesn’t really matter ‘cos i see both dinners as equal. i don’t mind having the JB dinner before the SG one though i think it would be a struggle to find enough people to fill the hall in JB given that Iceman and my friends are almost all in SG.
that said, the first snag we hit today was – how am i going to wear the white wedding gown twice? for people (i suppose especially parents) who are superstitious, it’s taboo to wear the white gown twice. but i don’t really care ‘cos i’m going to have 3 gowns for my wedding and i definitely want to wear all THREE gowns at the SG dinner ‘cos that’s where all my friends will be!
so we talked and talked about it and my bottomline was simple – either let me wear the white gown only at the SG dinner (which would mean then that we would be in a technical default for the JB dinner since that’s the "main" dinner and i won’t be wearing the white gown at the "main" dinner) or let me wear the white gown twice.
poor Iceman… he was caught between his parents & me… but he came up with a brilliant solution. he suggested that maybe we could do a lunch reception in SG, then the JB dinner on the same night… and i could then wear the white gown twice without offending any taboos!
it will be a tiring day… but hey, i’m ok with that as long as i get to wear all my gowns in front of my SG guests. but then we spoke about it some more & it occurred to me that maybe wear the white wedding gown isn’t going to be that meaningful after all. i mean, i’m not going to walk down the aisle in church… my dad’s not going to give me away at the altar… so why bother with the white wedding gown?
hence Iceman & i decided that we’re going to chuck the western tradition all together. hey, we’re Chinese & we’re proud of it! so we decided we’re going to camp it up! cheongsams, the kua, the chinese gown for guys & mandarin collar shirts are going to be the order of the day. (bridesmaids/jie meis take note ya? :P). if i have to spend an extra $500 to tailor cheongsams for my bridesmaids/jie meis, i will! with the right music, the whole event can be quite funky actually. unique, different, light-hearted & funny. i’m liking the thought of it more & more.
so the game plan now is to convince Iceman’s parents that since my side will have a wedding lunch instead of the full scale dinner, they should give in a little too & allow the bride’s side to have the tea ceremony at the lunch first. (this is definitely not in accordance to tradition). of ‘cos we’ll serve tea to Iceman’s parents & any relatives that may come to SG for the solemnisation that’ll be done before the lunch. but for the relatives that aren’t in SG… or if it’s only his parents who’re coming to SG for the solemnisation + lunch… hopefully they’ll agree to this order of things.
sigh… i mean, worst case scenario would be we’ll do a dinner on Sat in JB, then another one on Sun in SG… but both Iceman & i felt that it won’t be very fair to the jie meis & brothers ‘cos that’ll mean we’re going to have to ask them to block their entire weekend for us… and possibly take leave on Mon ‘cos it’ll be a very tiring weekend. if we can have everything on just 1 day, it’ll be loads better.
so… pray for us? i think a wedding is really really difficult to plan ‘cos we need to take care of so many people’s sensitivities. if we could plan it our way, it’ll be so easy. as it is, i’ve almost decided on my bridal package after looking at just 1 studio – French Bridal. i think the hotel shouldn’t be difficult either ‘cos both Iceman & i are very decisive people… and i think judging from our negotiation skills today, we’ll do ok negotiating terms with the bridal studio & the hotel.
now… just to cross the first hurdle… i need to pray… very… hard.
How about your idea about going all traditional and all that? Sounds better than having to wear the white gown twice right? AND I think your idea of cheongsams etc is really great..make it different.
I am a bit lost about your not going in front of the alter tho…..er…elaborate please
Well the difficulty with starting with a traditional entrance thingy is finding a suitable song. A friend suggested I could do the white gown walk in first, then the traditional one next. Still toying around with sequences & ideas.
Not going to have a church wedding so no giving away of the bride at the altar for me. 🙂