Wedding Part 1

Happy belated Chinese Year to everyone. =)

This was the first CNY I had celebrated since I came back from UK. However, the event that I looked forward to the most this year was my cousin brother, John Lim’s wedding reception in my hometown, Sibu on the third day of CNY. His actual wedding ceremony was held a week after that in KL. The wedding reception was not grand but it was good. We had the bridal car, a Lexus that Uncle Kay Kee (a family friend) lent to us.

Also for the first time in 4 years, we bought some firecrackers to celebrate this auspicious day. It is the Chinese tradition for the guy’s family to burn the firecrackers to welcome the bride. The more firecrackers the family burn, the richer the family will be. Although my family is Christian, we decided to perform all these traditional customs because we want to have a proper Chinese wedding party in Sibu.

I too played an important role on that day. I was the Master of the ceremony and back-up best man. John’s younger brother was suppose to be the Master of ceremony and the best man but due to problem with his flight back to Malaysia ( He was doing his Master in USA), he had no time to prepare the speech. He is still the best man though.

The preparation of the speech was not an easy task especially when it had to be in Chinese. It was very difficult for me because I had never writen a formal Chinese speech before this. Furthermore, I had forgotten how to write most of the Chinese words. Hence, my uncle ended up writing the speech for me. =P After that, we showed the drafted speech to the organising committee for comments and amendments. The speech was initially one page long but after the meeting it was reduced to only 10 lines and only 4 paragraphs. Remembering the speech was not a problem but I had to look up the dictionary for the correct pronunciation of some new words I had encountered. My parents promised to literally skin me alive if I embarrassed my cousin brother, his new wife, my uncles and aunties and the in-laws if I pronounced the words wrongly. Hence in order to be sure, I checked two dictionaries to make sure that I pronounced every damn words correctly.

the small paper was the final draft

Finally the big day came. My uncle went to fetch the bride from a hotel in the city centre while I waited at home. I had another task then. I was in charge of lighting the firecrackers when I saw the car fetching the bride and the groom approaching the house. I did not have the chance to take the picture of the firecrackers because everything happen so fast. =P

the bride and the bridesmaid

Then,

The bride and the groom had to bow to the sky before entering the house for tea offering ceremony. Tea will be offered to the respective grandparents, parents and other uncles and aunties.

After that, we proceed to the restaurant for the party.

This was me making the speech.=P

As the MC, it is also my job to lead the crowd to shout 3 times yamseng. The night before the party, I received instruction from John to shout, yaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (for 10 sec) sssssssssseng. I was almost out of my breath after the third yamseng. But everyone seems to enjoy it.

After the party, we had a photo session.

the Groom’s Family

the Bride’s Family

My Family
Back L-R my younger sister also the bridesmaid -Cindy, cousin sister in-law – May Leen, cousin brother – John, my baby sister – Angeline

Front L-R me, my mother, my grandmother and my father

That’s all folks! Stay tune for the Church wedding in KL!