Kevin's sister Teresa got married last Saturday. In Chinese culture, there's usually an engagement party that mostly revolves around the bride's family and friends and then the wedding which is mostly for the groom's family and friends. Often these are held on
separate days, but more and more couples like Teresa and
Ruai-Fang are deciding to do it all on the same day.
So last Saturday morning, the groom and his family were welcomed to the bride's home by her and many members of her extended family for engagement festivities. A big part of the engagement is the bride serving tea to her husband and family. Here you can see Teresa and an aunt preparing to serve the tea.
I suppose traditionally the purpose of this is to see how well the new bride could take care of her new family. The ironic thing is that Teresa (like most modern brides) was so busy being made up for the day that she wasn't at all involved in the tea-making.
After the tea ceremony, the bride and groom are each given gold
jewelry by the families.
After a few pictures, everyone took a break for a couple of hours as the engagement was finished.
Not long after lunch, the groom returned to pick up the bride for the wedding festivities that took place at his house. That gave us a chance to take naps and get rested up for the reception that took place in the evening.
Keanu and Kate were asked to be ring bearer and flower girl for the ceremony. Remember,
Keanu's a pretty shy and opinionated kid, right? Flash back 2 months when we went to the bridal shop to try on their clothes: "No! No! No!" No amount of bribery or trickery could get him into the clothes. So I had Grandma send over a cute shirt, tie, and vest for him to wear instead. Still no luck... Any time the topic came up, he said he was going to wear his car shirt and car shoes. Guess what he wore?
No such luck! The week before the wedding, Teresa took her other nephew to get fitted for a suit at the bridal shop. He's pretty cute, huh?! And little Charley (who turned three just days after the wedding) had a great time
bustin' a move in the bridal room in his cool tux! Here's our family of four along with the beautiful bride before the reception began.
Kate, on the other hand, loved her pretty flower girl dress. She kept her sparkly
barrette in her hair for a few minutes while we practiced walking into the dinner, but after that she was done with the pretty
barrette. Oh well, she was still quite a hit! We had a bit of down time before the wedding began, so we snapped a few pictures.
And then
Keanu got jealous of all the pictures of his little sister and jumped in front of the camera for a few shots of him, too.
We killed some time playing on the high chairs because then Mommy didn't have to hold her shy little flower girl.
Keanu was pretty bored by this point, too. We were just waiting for guests to arrive so we could get going with the evening.
Finally, it was time to start. The bright spotlights surprised and blinded Kate, but she walked about half way up the aisle. That was enough for us.
So then we ate and ate and ate. Ok, that's what most guests did. Keanu was too busy to eat. In Chinese weddings, the bride spends most of the reception changing clothes and socializing with the guests, so I guess that's what Keanu was doing, too. But wait, he wasn't changing clothes and he was only socializing with his cousin Angela and sister Kate. That's still enough not to want to sit down and eat.
Finally, the dinner was finished and guests left to go home.
As the receiving line slowed down a bit,
Keanu and Kate decided to join the pictures of the families who were leaving the ceremony. I guess everyone thought they were too cute to ask them to step out of the pictures!
Here they are with Teresa and her new sister in law.
And then there were a few more chances for uninterrupted pictures. Like the bride and her mom.
Kate and her Ah-ma (grandma)
And finally, the bride with her two
nieces: junior bridesmaid
Angela and
flower girl Kate.
It was the only sunny, beautiful day in the 2 weeks surrounding it, and we wish Teresa and Ruai-Fang a lifetime of sunny, beautiful days.
We got a new Christmas tree this year from IKEA. I'm really happy with it since it is nice and full and didn't take alot of tweaking after assembly. Plus, it is rather compact so it doesn't take up a lot of unnecessary floor space. The long needles kinda remind me of the Christmas tree Grandpa and Grandma always had when we were growing up, but I think there've been great improvements in fake trees in the last 30-ish years!
