Just a Small Wedding with 530 Guests

We have been preparing and looking forward to N & H's wedding weekend for quite some time. 1) It was M's first time officiating. 2) M would see her mother and brother for the first time since January. 3) I would get to see my first Cambodian/ Filipino wedding. 4) I would be her date (she had never brought a girl to a Cambodian event and it's pretty neat to be the preacher's wife (or back up Reverend)!).

We were supposed to be at the bride's parent's house at 8 AM on Saturday morning but my train had gotten in late the night before and I had stayed up with her, her mother and brother. Her mother packed me some food, so sweet! Trying to get up was really rough. We made it around 9:30 AM and while it would've been amazing to witness all the intricacies of the Cambodian ceremony (which actually started on Friday morning), the air conditioning broke and like Survivorman, we headed underground and hid from the heat in the basement. Lunch was again, home-made and utterly delicious. There was some kind of beef and string bean cerviche, Thai noodles, a whole roast/ deep fried pig and pickled vegetables. M was very hot and tired so we all headed back home without seeing the hair cutting ceremony or the knot tying ceremony.

After a brief nap, we got gussied up and headed over to Harvest Moon for the "western-style" wedding and banquet. Despite the huge amount of people, the wedding was pretty well organized. I couldn't imagine trying to manage all the people and details. We were put at a really fun table (Table 3!!!) and one thing I've learned from K's wedding in Mexico - bring your own alcohol! Luckily, we had a couple of bartenders sitting with us so the drinks were flowing (Goldschlogger shots and something called "Liquid Cocaine"). I had a beer and some champagne because, I did not want to deal with a hang-over and I might have to drive if the Reverend got too smashed. Which she did...her pictures get more and more adorable through the night.

The ceremony was great. M did an amazing job in spite of her jitters and many drinks. She got a standing ovation when she came back to our table and so many people came up to her and said they loved it. The band was called "Hello Band (1)" and I LOVED them. Intermixed with Cambodian hits, they played some great 80s to today karaoke staples that our tables sang really loudly to - "It's too late to apologize, too LATE!!!" A bunch of drunk guys really liked my tattoo and took a lot of pictures of my back. M's gay Cambodian traditional dance teacher who is so cool and loves me, asked me to dance and taught me some Cambodian dance moves. I think I am close to getting their version of the electric slide. Then R put in her dance mix and we did a Filipino money dance which was really fun. Basically, people get cash and pins, line up, pin the bride or groom with cash, and dance with them for a little bit. The food was good - your basic Chinese Wedding banquet fare of 11 courses. My 3 favorite courses are: 1st course cold platter with jellyfish salad, 7th course ginger scallion lobster, 11th course cake. The cake was so good - Vietnamese style with mocha filling. They even put a Mickey and Minnie wedding ornament on top and little Mickey heads all around the cake. It was a really fun weekend.