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Mild Wedding: Cultures

So, I lied just a tad. The Mild Wedding actually consisted of a couple of different events, rather than a single day's worth of festivities. One of those events was a Chinese wedding banquet, where they serve you ten courses of food. Yes, ten courses. Pretty much everyone left stuffed.

Now, the Chinese ceremony was obviously a nod to part of my heritage. I've been to enough Chinese weddings and have enough Chinese family nearby that we figured it made sense to get married that way, as well. In fact, I remember telling people that I didn't really consider myself completely, thoroughly married until the paper work was done AND we'd done the cultural ceremonies. We don't do things half-assed around here.

That said, I am a make up of several cultures (as has been documented in the past to amusing results), and the Mild Wife brings her own, unique cultural heritage to the table. So, we decided that we would make sure no particular cultural would get left out. Sure, it was a Chinese wedding banquet, but we were going to put our own spin on it. Tradition is nice and all, but it doesn't quite encompass the mix of history and culture that makes up yours truly or the Mild Wife.

Now, one of the things that traditionally happens at a Chinese wedding banquet is a bridal costume change. Generally speaking, it's considered good luck for the bride to wear several different dresses. So, it's pretty common for the bride to sneak away at some point to a back room to change into different attire. Well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I also had a costume change, into a Filipino barong. They're worn for important occasions, like, say, Mild Weddings. So, I put one on and did a costume change at the same time that the Mild Wife changed into a different dress (side note: one of the dresses was one that's been passed from cousin to cousin, so there was a nice touch of history there).

You should've seen the smiles and surprise on some of our guests' faces when they saw me rocking the barong. The Filipino ones were quite thoroughly amused, and the other folks were an equal part surprised and intrigued. As a non-trivial bonus, those things are light and airy. It's like air conditioning is built right into the clothing. It's pretty awesome.

The last, and arguably best, part of the cultural nods, though, was the favor we used. Up to that point, we'd covered all but my Latino side. So, as a wedding favor, we gave people individually wrapped alfajores (with a double happiness sticker on top). I don't remember exactly how many people went hunting for more alfajores on the tables, but it was more than a handful. My sister threatened to hurt her brother in law if he took hers. The Mild Wife was getting all sorts of text to the effect of, "oh my God! I just ate the cookie. Those things are awesome!" Basically, it went over well. I was laughing my head off when the Mild Wife told me about her friends and family's reactions to alfajores.

So, all in all, the fact that the Mild Wife and I bring several different cultures to the table made the Mild Wedding that much more amusing. Aren't different cultures fun?
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