Since August this year, the Boy and I have been to the following weddings:
– Indian wedding in Canada
– Chinese wedding in Singapore
– mixed wedding in Australia
– European wedding in France

And over the next six months, we’ll most likely be going for:
– (another) Chinese wedding in Singapore
– Arabic wedding in North Africa

Over the past 2–3 years, I’ve also been to several other 3 Chinese weddings (one of which was a barbeque) in Singapore and a Swedish wedding in Sweden.

After 8 weddings across 5 continents, I feel like a veritable wedding expert. I would almost say I’ve seen it all, except I know I haven’t. Nonetheless, I’ve seen a lot.

I’ve seen super stressed out brides (who terrified me and scared me off marrying), I’ve seen some pretty chilled out brides (e.g. the French bride, who even joined the dance performance put on by her bridesmaids on the makeshift stage), and I’m currently seeing a bride (and groom) so chilled out as to be practically comatose – given they haven’t yet booked a venue for their wedding in three months’ time!

There have been those who have planned their own weddings in great detail (whether in person or remotely, via transatlantic phone calls), those who’ve outsourced large parts to parents/relatives/bridesmaids and bestmen.

Sizes have ranged from 30+ for the wedding barbeque (or c.80 for the Swedish wedding), to 400+ for the bigger Chinese weddings – from the intimate, where the couple knows (and presumably likes) everyone personally; to the impersonal, where the couple has issued obligatory invitations and probably invited distant relatives and friends of the parents.

The weddings that I’ve been to have ranged from the super simple (a barbeque at the house) to full-scale multi-media entertainment affairs:
– The Indian/Canadian wedding was a multi-day extravaganza of cultural rites of passages (including the cameo appearance of a white horse!), dancing – both celebratory dances and dance performances (variously, by parents, guests, cousins, bridesmaid, bride, and groom), photo slideshows, and a video featuring acting performances from the bride and groom. There was then after-dinner dancing, which the Boy and I missed as we had to catch our flight
– The French wedding included sketches, photo slideshows (with funny commentaries), and videos by the bridesmaids and groomsmen between each course of the meal, and was topped off by a performance of 3 dances by the bridesmaids (one of which included the girls dancing in bikini tops – whoo hoo!). Although, this is probably a young, modern version of a french wedding, since, from what i’ve heard, traditional french weddings usually feature speech after speech after speech by everyone who wants to make one (horror!). The night ended with dancing that went on until 5am (!) The bride, who enjoyed dancing, was dancing merrily and energetically with a group of her friends, while the groom, who doesn’t enjoy dancing, spent more time in the garden speaking to friends and family

From my experience, it seems that the highlight of Chinese weddings is the “wooing/capturing of the bride” rite/ritual which usually happens in the morning of the wedding – whereby the groom and his groomsmen visit the house of the bride and try to gain admittance to the bride’s house by performing “stunts” which the bridesmaids give them. The lunch/dinner itself, by contrast, is a fairly standard affair: a 8-10 course meal with some photo slidehshows (of the couple’s childhood and/or pre-wedding photos), some speeches, and change of outfits by the bride. After the lunch/dinner ends, all the guests shuffle off (and some seem to leap up with indecent haste to leave!!) and shake hands with the hosts (the couple, and both sets of parents)

Whereas for European weddings, from my (very limited) experience, the church wedding itself is fairly boring (hymms and speech by a priest, with bible dings by friends, and occasional singing by friends), but the dinner is a very lively affair. For example, apart from the (possible) French exceptionalism, the bridesmaids in the Swedish wedding sang an adapted-ABBA song to a set of photo slideshow of the bride. And whemever the groom stepped out of the room, all male guests stood up and ran to the bride to kiss her on the cheek, and vice versa (a Swedish tradition). And the night has always ended with dancing. It usually starts with some sort of waltz by the couple and/or their parents, then it transitions to 50s/60s music for the older generation, and then to club music for the younger guests.

And the Indian wedding, well music and dancing and merry-making was inescapable there!

When people ask me when I’m going to marry, I always laugh and shrug it off. Apart from the usual questions, both important (needing to be sure if the Boy is the guy i want to spend the rest of my life with) and trivial (whether the Boy can afford to buy me a beautiful ring), I’ve always avoided even the thought of marriage because just trying to begin to imagine the logistics of a wedding gives me a headache.

– Where do we hold the wedding: France, UK, Singapore, Malaysia?
– How do we reconcile the generational, cultural and linguistic differences: I have relatives who barely speak English, the Boy has relatives who only speak French (and a grandmother for whom even French is her second language!), then there is the format of the meal (Chinese 10-course banquets vs. European 3 or 4-course meals) etc.
– How do I fulfil the Chinese social obligation to random relatives and my parents’ friends, while keeping it intimate and relevant as I prefer?
– How do we make the wedding interesting and entertaining for guests? (if guests are to travel from afar, then I feel that we owe it to them to make it worth the trip; and if there are too many guests, then we end up having to have a boring programme with the lowest common denominator for all guests)

However, the more weddings I see/attend/hear about, including inter-cultural weddings, weddings with foreign guests… the more comfort I get that some of these problems can be worked around (as I see new ideas/solutions which subconciously marinate in my mind), and the more likely it is that something can happen once the fundamental important and trivial questions are resolved. The Boy and I do discuss at each wedding what we like and dislike about the different aspects of the wedding and what our key takeaways would be.

But for now, I’m still trying to avoid catching the bridal bouquet!