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This Saturday my friend’s father (Ray) married his girlfriend of many years (Hanya). I’ve known Ray and Hanya for a few years and they have always been great to me, needless to say I was excited when I heard they were thinking of getting married a while back, and even more excited to be invited to the wedding.

The ceremony started at 3:30 in the afternoon and I had made it there with about two minutes to spare. It began with some music playing and various people walking down the aisle to their places. I really enjoyed how they had picked out music that fit their personalities. One song was from a PC game they like to play called Marrowind, and another was a favorite trance song of theirs by “Rank 1″ called “Airwave”; I didn’t hear the traditional “here comes the bride” song once.

When Hanya began walking down the aisle I could tell she was close to tears already, I imagine the whole experience is pretty overwhelming. The priest read a number of quotes and discussed a poem that was read earlier. He also read ten things Ray and Hanya loved about each other. At first I wondered why the two didn’t read the list to each other themselves, but I soon realized this would have been near impossible because of the emotions involved.

During the ceremony we took a moment of silence to remember those who lost their lives on 9/11 three years ago (since their wedding was on 9/11). I thought it was great that they decided to have the wedding on this day, even though at first it seemed a bit odd. Not only will it make it easy for them to remember their anniversary (a bonus for any guy), but it gives everyone involved something positive to think about every year on that memorable date.

After the ceremony was 45 minutes of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Open bar and tasty finger-foods consisting of crab cakes, salmon rolls, and other various items… good stuff.

At 5pm was dinner. We were shown to our tables and started with a salad after everyone had found their seats. After salad was a small sorbet, mango on top and I think raspberry on the bottom. Then the main course was served. We were given the choice of steak, chicken, salmon, or vegetarian lasagna; obvious choice was steak. Wow, what can I say, it was definitely the best steak I have ever had. It was so tender I could easily cut it with a butter knife, and it was full of flavor.

After dinner a Scottish looking man came out and played a few songs on a bagpipe to entertain the crowd until the cake was brought out. I have always been a huge bagpipes fan, so this was a real treat for me. Bagpipes have got to be one of the most interesting and unique instruments. The man played a few traditional songs, a waltz, two jigs, and ended with “Amazing Grace.” Even though it’s overplayed and a bit cliché, I still love hearing this song played on the bagpipes.

The wedding cake was brought out and Ray and Hanya cut the first piece with a five-foot long sword. Apparently Hanya bought Ray the sword two years ago as a gift. Again, not very traditional, but very cool, and very fitting of the two.
The rest of the night was filled with dancing to 80’s music and drinking. I hardly knew anyone there, but everyone seemed to be having a great time. After the wedding was over I helped my friend take the gifts and flowers back to his father’s house; we relaxed there for a bit and then I headed back home.

I can’t express how happy I was to be made a part of the celebration. It really meant a lot to me to be invited and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Before this I had only been to one wedding and it was for some friends of my parents. This was back when I lived in Singapore, so it was a Chinese wedding. I remember there being a lot of “weird” food, including shark-fin soup. This completely grossed me out and I left the wedding to walk around the mall below until it was over.

It was great to be able to see how they organized the event. I really loved how there were a lot of personal touches that made it their wedding, such as the ice sculpture replica of Ray’s sailboat. My friend told me that their wedding rings have elvish etched on their insides (like in Lord of the Rings), although I didn’t see this for myself.

Throughout the night I couldn’t help but think of how my own wedding would be, assuming I get married one day. This isn’t something I think about very often, in fact I have never really given it much thought at all, but it was fun to entertain the idea for a while. I can’t imagine it being as nice as Ray and Hanya’s, but it will definitely have personal touches that scream of my personality as well as the personality of my to-be wife. I have a feeling she will want to deal with all the details, but as long as I get to choose the music I’ll be happy.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 13th, 2004 at 1:03 am and is filed under Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.