Skip to main content

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?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All Good Things ...

August 8, 2009. Over twelve years ago, I started blogging with this simple post . I didn't really have a great reason for starting the blog, other than I wanted to try it out. I wanted to try writing and putting it where others could read it. I don't know, it just seemed like a new adventure to try. Along the way, there have been all sorts of posts and all sorts of life events, but through it all, I kept writing. It just became a part of what I do at some point. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to write a blog post, it was a matter of when. The Mild Wife has described it as a "writing practice," and it was one of the reasons why I kept writing. Honestly, it's good practice, and it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft. I'm no professional author, but we all have to write stuff in our everyday lives. Why not give yourself reps to get better at it? However, I think it's time for that practice to change. My weekly anecdotes sure kept me amused...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dreams

Normally, I don't eat very many sweets. I tend to eat pretty generous portions, but I generally prefer savory food over sweet. In fact, I usually prefer things half as sweet when possible. My preference doesn't have anything to do with health reasons, it's just one of those things that I've always liked better. That said, I do inevitably eat dessert, particularly if I'm out with other people. My stance towards dessert is roughly equivalent to those who are social drinkers . If other people want to munch on something for dessert, I'm not about to cross my arms and refuse. That'd be just a tad gauche. So, I do eat some dessert. I even have a few standby favorites that I'll usually order when presented with them (brownies, creme brulee, and apple pie). But left to my own devices, I'm not about to go hunting for dessert. Apparently, this means that the sugar can really mess with my system under the right circumstances. As I've discovered, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

New York City Trip (Day 1)

After my crappy flight , I was now in Newark, New Jersey at 7AM on a Friday morning. I had done a little bit of reading up, so I knew which bus I needed to take and where I was going to get off. All in all, getting into the city was surprisingly easy. I suppose speaking the language does make things simpler. Through no real planning of mine (a theme of the trip, at least on my part), I picked one of the later bus stops at which to get off, Grand Central. I actually just figured that getting off at Grand Central would give me options, and heck, it's called Grand Central. That just screamed "decent place to disembark that might be close to some stuff" to me, so that's where I got off. However, it also meant that we drove down 42 nd St to get to my bus stop. That just happens to be a big street, and it gave me a glimpse of Times Square as we drove by. My bus stop choice had accidentally given me a rough layout of the city. Go me. I had about 6 hours to kill...
1 comment
Read more