TALK ABOUT WEDDINGS!

     Clients, please, let me assure you that this is not about you. 

     I simply want to recall some of the funniest weddings I have ever encountered. Incidents that happened prior to, during and after weddings that were truly hilarious as well as thought-provoking! 

     So, this stormy day, Youngest Daughter and I talk about wedding anecdotes that I can remember and unbelievably, these are purely culled from experiences of family members.

     My biggest blessing in life, I can truly declare, was having a very voluble mother with an elephant’s memory for details.  Mama had a treasure trove of awfully comical episodes during family events especially weddings because she was always in the hub of the activities as part planner and part executor.  Despite being young at those times, I could still vividly picture her animation when recounting these family secrets.   

     Most of my older male cousins on my Chinese side were married off observing the traditional pre-arranged marriage.  First, a matchmaker would be consulted on possible matches based on birth signs and family backgrounds.  Then, the protagonists were introduced.  Often, “accidental” meetings were organized so that the youngsters can size up the other party.  If both liked what they saw, then a formal introduction was managed.  From there, parents supervised the dating process until such time that they decided it time to hold the formal engagement. 

     Traditional Chinese engagement parties are colorful events with both affianced families preparing months in advance to pull off a proper one.  As far as I can remember, the family of the prospective groom brings with them offerings of food, bales of fabrics for the bride’s trousseau, and sets of jewelry.  This, of course, would include the engagement ring the size of which would have been previously discussed and agreed upon by the mothers. 

     I remember watching from the sidelines as adults busied themselves preparing all those offerings for the bride’s family.  They used big red containers that resembled extra large size “prembrera”s to store the food items such as misua, fruits, cans of pork legs, red “ampao”s, siopao-like mamons made from sweet potato flour.  All items were symbolical of something good for the forthcoming marriage.

     The engagement ceremony, frankly, never interested me and all I could recall is that the couple would do the rounds of elders offering misua with egg in small bowls and something that looked like dehydrated dates in sweetened water.  Elders from both families were introduced and given the opportunity to get to know each other better.  Honestly, I don’t think they even cared about the young couple getting married.  What must have been paramount was the network, and new family ties that were being cemented! 

     Even then, I had this impression that Chinese weddings were never taxing to the bride or groom.  It was always the mothers who worked to pull off a grand event.  Depending upon religious beliefs, wedding ceremonies were held either in a Catholic/Protestant church or the social hall belonging to the family’s affiliation.  By the latter, I refer to the association of families with the same surnames or those who claim to have originated from the same village in China.  Reception was either held in restaurants or spacious ancestral homes.  An open house was held where the newly married couple’s bedroom displayed all the jewelry, gift checks, trousseau, and appliances brought in by the bride and groom.  Everything was laid out for guests’ inspection.  Thus, another wedding wrapped up and mothers preened before everybody and hoped that the event will be mentioned in the newspapers as well as discussed in social gatherings. 

     With the best of intentions and planning, however, something or rather, someone, almost always got upset! 

     One indelible memory is of a male cousin sobbing and crying all the way to the wedding ceremony simply because he was so against his own marriage!  Months prior to the event, arguments raged between him and my uncle because he just was not ready.  But – it was a good match and he was of age.  It had to be done!   Like any obedient child of that generation, he dutifully married the chosen bride in between tearful hiccups and lived a peaceful and fruitful life to this day.  They now boast of a lawyer, a doctor, a topnotch computer geek, and a retired CFO of a multinational among their successful brood.  Not bad.  Proof of the marriage’s stability is a recent incident when a pretty young lady came to visit.  The wife opened the door and immediately knew it was for her husband.  How she knew?  The lady looked exactly like their daughter!  Apparently, this young lady is my cousin’s illegitimate daughter that he lost touch with.  Anyway, she just wanted him to walk her down the aisle – that was all she asked.  The wife was cool with it.  No fuss!

     Another cousin was married with an extended coverage of scandal in the newspapers immediately after the engagement.   Without the knowledge of both pairs of parents, it appeared that my cousin’s fiancée had a boyfriend vehemently fighting to keep his girl.  He was poor albeit with plenty of contacts in the media.  Sadly, he would never have measured up to the girl’s family’s financial standards.  Much like modern day scandals, the boyfriend resorted to publishing pictures of the illicit lovers in compromising situations.  Something seldom heard of in those days.  My uncle was having second thoughts about pushing through with the wedding and was often heard to be saying that he bought the wrong merchandise.  In the end, with the girl’s parents relentlessly pursuing the union, my cousin married this lady.   Noteworthy, of course, was the obvious sign of pregnancy of the bride!  Another eyebrow-raising development!  From the get-go, this was a union marked by hysterical and noisy bickering.  My cousin soon learned to simply walk out and return home only when things cooled down.  Now in their seventies, they look like they lived a happy life even though many secrets remained  unraveled.

     The formal engagement of another cousin was marked with much antagonism.  The problem arose from the fact that my aunt could not find the size of diamond for the engagement ring as per agreement.  She made a trip to Hongkong to find such a one to no avail.  Since the engagement day was predetermined by feng shui, she was constrained to buy the next best thing.  The future bride’s mother did not take too kindly to this shortcoming and chose to snub the groom’s family throughout the ceremony.  All their gifts were returned after the engagement ceremony which fact sent my aunt crying all the way home.  Traditionally, you see, the gifts must be divided at the end of the day with the future bride’s family retaining half and sending back the other half.  Returning everything simply meant that the union was not approved of.  By this time, however, my cousin and his fiancée had fallen in love and could no longer be deterred from going ahead with the wedding.  Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha… nothing that the bride’s mother could do could distance the future bride from her groom.  The wedding pushed through as scheduled so I guess, they were not that obedient a generation, after all!  My cousin was quite a catch; good-looking, personable and a board exam topnotcher to boot!  They, too, created a happy, loving and spiritual life together.  They had the usual financial challenges but they remained such an ideal couple until my cousin passed away from illness some years back. 

     A favorite wedding episode is that of another cousin, my uncle’s illegitimate son.  Notwithstanding his status, he was accepted openly in the family with my kind hearted aunt leading by example.  When it was time, however, for him to be married, my normally gentle aunt suddenly put her foot down to my uncle’s presence at the event.  Her reason was that the prospective bride being the daughter of a well respected, high profile, wealthy merchant in the community, it was going to be a high profile wedding.  For my uncle to appear beside his mistress and show themselves off to the society as father and mother of the groom will bring my aunt much shame.  Undaunted, my uncle was decided to grace the wedding.  He did not reckon that my aunt locked up all of his garments the night before and he was in his undergarments the whole day with every one of us watching his moves.  Anyway, the wedding went ahead.   This couple proved to one and all that their relationship was sturdy and steadfast.  In their late sixties, they are still together and still manage to travel all over the world.  The lady in this union, however, is one stubborn woman whose very words are followed as the law in their home.  It had been their way since they were young until the time when they raised their five sons.  Surprisingly, you would think that this lady would have learned her lesson from her own botched up wedding but no. 

     When her eldest son was of marrying age, she started vetting possible candidates for his bride.  One had him smitten and the young ones, of their own accord, developed a loving relationship.  When it was time to discuss the engagement and wedding, my cousins and four of their sons went to the lady’s family to formally arrange the details of the union.  Through the discussion, the two mothers argued about petty details and my cousin-in-law, the vixen that she had always been, suddenly stood up and declared that this union is not possible.  When she glanced at the male members of her family, all of them stood up in unison and silently trooped out of the meeting much like a bunch of soldiers marching to her drum. 

     Soon, the young couple eloped! So as not to make her son appear dishonorable, my cousin-in-law arranged for them to be married.  The wedding was conducted not so much in conformity with tradition but simply to formalize the union.  Not a member of the bride’s family came and she was in tears all throughout the ceremony. 

     Of course, all has now been forgiven by the bride’s family; especially when the grandkids started arriving. 

     Now and then, I get to wonder how these characters could quibble and scandalize over some details and yet, notwithstanding the furious thunder and lightning attending preparations, the weddings still went through!   Up to now, I wonder if there is a formula to parentally arranged marriages that these couples, in spite of the faulty starts, lived in wedded bliss and balance to their old age. 

     It just reminds me of that post in Facebook that I saw and shared one time.  An obviously old couple was discussing what they did right in their union and one said, “That’s because we belong to that generation where when things are broken, we don’t throw them away.  We fix them.”   I guess, these couples must have done plenty of fixing through the years.