Since our photographers spent most of the cocktail hour taking pictures of John and I at the church, we had no pictures of people at the cocktail hour. So sad, but at least we have guests who captured cocktail hour, and hopefully our videographer captured it as well.
I should mention that we were the only ones who were announced. We had a huge entourage, and knew that if we were to start dinner at 8pm, people would already be pretty hungry. So instead of waiting through a bunch of intros, and the whole walking all the way up to their seat, we just eliminated it altogether. Instead my sister put together a video introducing the bridal party. Another reason for this was that our MCs were also in our bridal party. It’d get pretty complicated trying to introduce themselves, so the video solved all our problems. Speaking of our MCs, here they are performing their “rap.”
Don’t you just love the mean mug that John’s sister is making. It really personified their rap personalities. John’s pretty bummed that he didn’t get to hear their rap. But here’s us entering:
We walked into The Chicago Bulls’ Championship song by Sirius. Unfortunately, we didn’t give really great instructions about the song. And the beginning is slow, and very light, and you don’t hear it very well. So when we were announced, and the doors opened, it sounded like there was no music playing. So sad, didn’t work out like I wanted it to. Oh well. That may be why my face looks a little uncomfortable and shocked. I think it was also the fact that all eyes were on us. I’m extroverted but it was so intense the fact that we had almost 400 people just staring at us.
Next we had our priest pray over the food. I have to say that Fr. Kevin has probably prayed over our food at all of my family’s important functions–my cotillion, my sister’s cotillion, and my parents’ 25th anniversary.
With the invocation over with, the appetizers and soups came out. And then onto the speeches.
My best friend/MOH gave a beautiful speech that of course made me cry. We’ve been best friends for at least 13 years. When she began her speech, this is when I discovered that our Vietnamese guests totally didn’t care about the speeches. It was the first time I was at a wedding and there wasn’t dead silence during the speeches. I was told later not to take it personally, and that Vietnamese guests never listen to speeches. So then it felt like the speeches were really just for us to hear.
Next was John’s little brother/Best Man. He never talks in public. He’s always quiet, and he’s probably the least outspoken person you’ve ever met. Giving his speech was definitely interesting. He’d say about 5 words, smile, move the mic away from his mouth, and repeat. He may have said a total of 4 sentences. We were proud that he get through it though.
This is the expression I made while listening to his brother’s speech. Just waiting to see how long he’ll talk for. Ha!
Then my sister went up and totally made me cry. Helps that she was crying too. She’s my little sister, she’s my only sister. And her speech was very touching and made me cry. On a side note, you can see my sister’s straps on her dress here. My sister is extremely conservative and felt naked without a shawl or straps. Even though I gave all the girls pashminas as their gift, I’m sure they all left them in our suite. All the dresses came with optional straps, and I told her that she could have the straps put on her dress, but only wear it for the reception. I wanted all our formal pictures to look identical. She was happy she got to have straps during the reception.
And last, but not least, our best friend/Best Man. He is totally the emotional type and we all knew it. So to prevent from being a complete mess, he decided it’d be a great idea to write his entire speech in his phone. Unfortunately, another friend/guest thought it’d be funny to call him during his speech. His speech was pretty traditional and typical, but I knew that if he really spoke from his heart, he wouldn’t be able to finish it. I understood.
And he managed to get through it without crying. Cheers to all!
As soon as all the toasts were done, it was time to haul @$$ to change into my ao dai for our table visits. Luckily our suite was pretty close to our reception so I was able to change fairly quickly.
And our second entrance! I was afraid that the Vietnamese tables would make us drink because that is what traditionally happens, but luckily only one table made us drink! During our table visits we were serenaded by our uncles.
First my dad’s oldest brother.
Then my dad’s youngest brother. My dad’s family is very musically talented. Not wanting to be shown up, John’s dad’s younger brother also decided to take a stab at singing. Ooooooh, was that fun….
Hahaha, you can’t truly understand how hilarious his uncle singing was. It was…it was…an experience. Bless his heart, but I hope he was drunk when he was singing, because he sure sounded like that.
The table visits took a ridiculously long time to finish. It’s a tradition in Vietnamese weddings, so it wasn’t something that I wanted to eliminate. In Vietnamese weddings, the couple usually takes pictures of each family at the entrance of the reception. I really didn’t want to do that AND take pictures at table visits. Instead, we eliminated the pictures at the entrance, and just stuck with table visits. With 36 tables, the table visits took more than an hour. I was pleasantly surprised halfway during our table visits when I saw a head peeking outside the reception, and lo and behold, look who stopped by:
My knottie friend Marianne was getting married next day at the Santa Clara Mission, and her and her girls were staying in the Fairmont Hotel. I told her to come by and visit, and I was so excited that she was able to! It’s the excitement of getting married and about to get married that you see in this picture. Yay!
My favorite table visit picture was the picture with all (actually most) of my cousins:
I have about 10 cousins on my mom’s side and 10 on my dad’s, and this is the majority of them. All of them except for 3 attended our wedding. I’m the oldest cousin, so it was nice to have a picture like this. You can see our flower girls and our bible bearer in this picture. Isn’t everyone gorgeous.
That was the last table visit picture we took, and then it was time to change back into my bridal gown for the rest of the reception.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment