Tag: wedding

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Ask Kyle

Janine and Jeremy enjoying cake I’ll be explaining in a bit while this blog post is titled “Ask Kyle”, but I’d like to take this moment to congratulate Jeremy and Janine! Thanks for inviting me to your wedding. 🙂 It’s definitely going to be different with Jeremy married. Sad to lose a dinner buddy. But as Jeremy says, he’s found me a replacement (a Jeremy′).

Most of my photos have been uploaded to Facebook: Jeremy and Janine’s Wedding

Note: I’ve tried to keep secrets/embarrassing stories to a minimum (unless it’s me or Chad and some of Jeremy’s), but if you feel I’ve disclosed something you’re not comfortable with, please let me know and I’ll remove it.

San Diego

Since their wedding was going to be held in San Diego, I thought this would be a great time to take some vacation and visit friends/family back in LA. I initially had planned to take the week before their wedding, but something came up and I decided to take the week afterwards. Turns out that worked out better as I didn’t realize Memorial Day was the following Monday so I got an additional day for my vacation.

When I tell my friends that I’m back for a friend’s wedding, there’s generally a series of questions that I get asked:

  • Oh! Who’s getting married? Do I know them? – Nope, it’s a friend from work
  • Oh! Is he originally from SD? – Nope, the bride wanted to have the wedding in SD
  • Oh! So the bride’s from SD? – Nope, they decided that SD would be a very nice place to hold the wedding
  • Oh! Cool!

So I flew into LA on Thursday to pick up my mom’s car and drove down to SD Friday morning. I met up with Jeremy and Chad and grabbed lunch at Tin Fish. For some reason, it was awfully chilly in SD and it was supposed to get cooler the following days. I had told Chad it was going to be shorts weather and it was anything but that. The sun was out, but the temperature was in the low 60s.

Tux Fitting

After lunch, we went to Men’s Warehouse to try on our tuxes. I was surprised when I saw Jeremy wearing a completely white tux, given that I had expected him to wear a traditional penguin suit. Jeremy has a conjecture as to why he’s wearing a completely white tux.

Another funny thing is almost everyone’s tux required alterations. My sleeves were too long. Chad’s vest had 2 male hooks instead of 1 male/1 female (funnier if you know Chad). Jeremy’s pants needed to be hemmed and he was given black shoes with his white tux, which we all agreed would look better with white shoes. Since Kyle was coming in late Saturday night, we had to pick up the tux for him and we were worried that he required some alterations too.

US Grant

We headed to the US Grant to check in. Chad had already checked in the night before. One thing that we noticed in the email confirmation I received from the US Grant is that valet parking (required if you want to park at the hotel) is $32/night.

Please note that the only parking option at this hotel is valet parking and the fee is $32 per night.

Wifi unfortunately wasn’t free and costs over $10/day. They did provide free wifi at the lobby which I ended up using instead to catch up on email and news. The lobby was rather comfortable and cozy. “Some” found a more convenient unsecured wifi hotspot across the street from their hotel rooms.

I guess these are all part of the 4-star hotel experience. ;p

Given that, the hotel room was really nice, the service was great, and it was fun living among the upper-echelon for a few days. The housecleaning folks would clean our room twice a day: once in the morning to make the bed, open the window blinds, and clean stuff up and once at night to remove the extra pillows from our bed, close our blinds, and give us chocolate.

One night, a high school prom was actually held there and we saw a bunch of high-schoolers all dressed up nice and pretty. Sure brings back memories and I can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I graduated from high school.

Rehearsal

We had the rehearsal on Saturday. We found out that Jeremy’s not allowed to know the schedule/times because he gets super stressed out if things don’t happen on time. It was funny that the instructions provided to us on how to get to the destination were incorrect, but people managed to all get to the correct location.

Matt (the officiant of the wedding) apparently went to the wrong Museum of Art. He unfortunately went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is closer to the airport and not anywhere near Balboa Park. He did managed to get to the right one with enough time remaining for the rehearsal.

We were told how to walk out and where to stand and so on. Matt would then give his speech. Apparently there was some miscommunication. Matt had prepared some statements for Jeremy to repeat after him, but Jeremy claimed to have replied to Matt’s email saying he only wanted to say the 2 words. Later we found out that email never left his outbox or something silly like that.

Due to the fact that the original maid of honor couldn’t make it to the wedding (her baby was due like that same week), there was 1 fewer bridesmaid than groomsman. Chad and I had to share.

Bachelor Party

Kyle was suppose to plan the bachelor party, but later entrusted that responsibility to Matt. Dave and Buster’s was the original plan (Jeremy had objected to having strippers). Macie on the other hand seem interested in joining us if there were indeed strippers. The bridesmaids had a very interesting story why there weren’t strippers at their bachelorette party.

We ended up at Dave and Buster’s (an arcade/parlor/bar). Dave and Buster’s was pretty fun, but their alcohol was really bad. Kyle finally made it and joined us.

Last Night As A Bachelor

After getting back to the hotel, Jeremy invited us back to his room where he gave us our groomsmen gifts. It was a very nice box with a glass placard inside. We hung around while his dad tried to get him drunk off Jim Beam. Funny and embarrassing stories started to come out. Unfortunately I don’t believe I have permission to reveal any of this and Jeremy was very stubborn about not letting his dad tell a particular story, which eventually got told. We didn’t think it was “that” embarrassing, but apparently Jeremy did. However I will tell you the following:

There were these paintings in our hotel rooms above our bed and most of the resemble faces. However, Jeremy noticed a bunch of condoms in his. After he pointed them out, there were one or 2 that did indeed resembled condoms, but we wouldn’t have ever noticed it unless he pointed them out.

Ask Kyle

Kyle with Parasol Kyle had flew in from Georgia and I informed him that the maid of honor wanted to talk to him in the morning. Since Jeremy was not allowed to know what’s going on, Kyle had to bear the burden of orchestrating the groomsman and the groom’s side of the wedding. A common theme that popped up early on was if you ask Jeremy anything in regards to the wedding, his response would be, “Ask Kyle.” We joked that that the 2 words he should say at the alter should be “Ask Kyle.”

Popular Breakfast Location

On the day of the wedding, we decided to check out this breakfast joint called Broken Yolk Cafe. We found this while flipping through one of the magazines/books in our rooms. I think the strawberry waffle really called out to us and apparently they have huevos!

When we go there, there was this giant line of people waiting. We looked both ways down the street and no other restaurant had line of people waiting to be seated. It was like all of San Diego who wanted breakfast was here at this joint.

We were originally told the wait time was going to be ~20 minutes. 20 minutes later, it was going to be another 10 according to the guy holding the clipboard. Jeremy didn’t really have the time, so we headed back and ate at Panera instead. There were some really tasty looking omelets too! Oh well.

Photographer

I was shocked to learnt how much it cost to hire the photographers. I was even more shocked at how much it would’ve cost extra to hire the videographers (is that what they’re called?). Anyway, we probably won’t be seeing any of the official wedding pictures until Jeremy and Janine gets back from their honeymoon.

The first time we met one of the photographers was in our hotel room. Apparently they wanted to take pictures of us changing into our tux which most of us found to be weird. So everyone was in a different state of undress when the photographer showed up. *snap* *snap* *snap*

Ceremony

The ceremony was really beautiful. All the bridesmaid carried a parasol, apparently another word for umbrella. Poor bridesmaids, they were freezing in their dresses. When we saw Janine, she was very beautiful in her white bridal dress. I learnt that giant piece of cloth that follows her dress is called the train. Choo! Choo!

They even hired violinists to play at their wedding. Initially I called them the string quartet, but apparently you only call a group of 4 musicians a quartet. I guess this was a duet. I wonder what you call them when there’s only 3, triplet?

Matt started talking and then there were “I dos”, an exchange of rings, nice passionate kisses mixed with cheers!

Looking back at the altar pictures, I realized how short I am. Haha. Everyone else was like 6′ or taller. Sigh…

After the reception, the bridal party had to accompany the bide and groom for more picture taking while the remainder of the guests got to enjoy snacks and drinks. When we finally got to the drinks table, we were told that our duties weren’t quite over yet and not to drink that much.

This being Chad’s first time drinking, I asked the bartender to make something sweet with vodka. He made us a vodka + cranberry + splash of orange juice drink which was really good. He didn’t know the name of the drink when we inquired, but later told us during dinner that it was called a madre. After searching online, it appears it goes by either madre or madras.

Reception

The reception was held inside the Musuem of Art and apparently they only do 1 wedding/month. As guests, we actually got to check out the museum. They had guards everywhere in case people started touching or breaking stuff I think. I mean people were expected to get drunk.

As the bridal party, we got a secret tour of the vault. Honestly, it was not that impressive. It was over before I even knew it began. The reason we got the secret tour was to get us the 2nd floor by going into the basement, so we can come down the stairs.

The food was very yummy. There was butternut-squash soup, Caesar salad, choice of beef steak/salmon filet, and of course cake. There were originally plans for 60 guests, but only about 30 were able to make it. So they reduced the catering, but didn’t resize the cake. So there was cake meant for 60 people, but only 30 people to consume it. Chad’s main reason for coming to this wedding was to eat cake and he was super happy about this news.

The cake was heavenly. They had 2 types of cake, some German chocolate one and some other strawberry one. Both were awesome and the frosting was not only edible but delicious and soft. I only made it through 2.5 slices though. Chad probably made it through more.

I wouldn’t say this is another reason Chad came, but Chad wanted to get drunk tonight. So we kept on ordering drinks. We had a whiskey sour, a rum and coke, and a long island ice tea. The rum and coke was really nasty. Chad didn’t really like any of them, so we went back to the madre.

Then there was dancing and jumping. It was really fun.

Somewhere along the line, we decided to become explorers and Chad and I wanted to see what was upstairs. Apparently there’s more galleries. What we didn’t know was that the upstairs were prohibited. We found that out when some guy comes running and tells us that we tripped the silent alarm. Haha. After we went back down, they put up little blockades preventing more people from making that mistake.

I also found out from Astrid (another bridesmaid) that the wedding planner decided to cut us off from alcohol. I’m not sure if this is related to the incident above or if we were just making a fool of ourselves. I asked Jeremy if I was banned from drinking and if he said yes, I’d stop drinking. Jeremy went and inquired with Janine (smart move and he’s only been married for less than a few hours) and they agreed that I should probably stop.

The night finally came to an end and we all headed back to the hotel.

Returning the Tuxes

Since I didn’t have to catch a flight, I became the designated person to return the tuxes. At the end of the day, I had been commissioned to return 6 tuxes (including mine). I did get to visit Jeremy at his “secret hideaway resort” to pick up his tux and wished them a safe and fun honeymoon.

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Analysis of a Chinese Wedding

Keith and Carmen pouring Champagne First I’d like to congratulate Keith and Carmen! I would also like to thank them for inviting me to their wedding and being part of the bridal party.

I initially thought this was going to be awkward and boring, given that I only knew a handful of people at this wedding (a number I can probably count on 1 hand). It didn’t help that I was a groomsman who didn’t know the groom that well. I also had no idea what to expect nor knew what my responsibilities were. But I had a blast and it was extremely fun. I’d also like to take this time to apologize to Kyle as I accidentally chipped his tooth. More about that later.

To give a little back story, I’ve been to Chinese weddings before, but usually relatives who were a generation older than me. My family and I were invited because my dad was invited. So my parents always took care of the gift and we just went there to eat. I always found them to be very boring. This is my first official wedding that I was the main invitee that I attended. Next week I have Xyon’s wedding to attend in San Diego, once again as a groomsman, so I’ll be able to compare.

However to truly experience what a Chinese wedding is, you really have to be in the bridal party (bridesmaids or groomsmen) and it’s a lot of fun! I do have to say the bridesmaid did a lot more work than the groomsmen did.

Way too early in the morning

The whole wedding thing starts way early in the morning. I had to be at the groom’s place by 8am. It takes about 30 minutes to drive to his place. I decided to give myself an hour to get dressed (I usually take 20 mins to get dressed, but given that I’m unfamiliar with a tux, I decided to give myself some extra time). Going to bed at 2:30am didn’t help and even though I set my alarm clock for 6:30am, hitting the snooze button twice got me till 6:48am. Despite only having 4 hours of sleep, I didn’t really feel tired at all today. I guess when you’re having fun, tiredness doesn’t really enter the equation. I mean it’s already 3:50am and I’m still typing this stupid blog post instead of sleeping. In another 2.5hrs, I’d be up for 24 hours. I guess the reasoning is I probably want to write down everything I can remember now before I forget them tomorrow.

The Tuxedo

The tux is basically a traditional western wedding tux, with a jacket, pants, vest and tie. One thing I’m not quite sure of is if it’s a Chinese tradition for the bride and groom to pay for the tux rental. For Xyon’s wedding, the groomsmen had to pay for the tux rental. Not complaining here, just noting a difference, as I even asked the rental place if I owed them any money.

While putting on the tux, everything was fine and dandy until I got to the cuff links. The cuff links themselves were fine as I figured out how to put them on pretty fast, but it came with these 4 tinier knobs which I had no idea what to do with. After searching for cuff link/accessories online, I found out these were called studs and studs basically replaced buttons on the dress shirt. It also took me awhile to figure out that in order to use the studs, I did not have to use the actual buttons. Too bad when you’re wearing a tie, you basically never see the studs.

With that said, I was ready to head out.

At the groom’s house

The groomsmen met at the groom’s house just as a gathering point, as we’ll be leaving for the brides house shortly. It was also a good place to help figure out how to wear the tuxedo for people who didn’t know quite exactly what to do. They tied a groom and bride Mickey Mouse + Minnie Mouse to the front of the wedding car. As groomsmen, we all got a red envelope from the groom’s family. It was time to head out.

At the bride’s house

When we got to the bride’s house, apparently there’s wedding games that the groom and groomsmen have to play in order to get into the house. It apparently involves many embarrassing acts. Ours included doing the hula dance, singing songs, doing push-ups while there’s a plate of whip cream below your face, and some other random stuff. Even though the groom and groomsmen had to do all this stuff, the bridesmaids had to think of them. Not quite sure which is harder. And of course there’s the bargaining of how much it’ll cost to allow the groom’s party to enter the house. After several back and forth, a price was reached (all in fun), and we were finally allowed in.

When we finally got to see the bride, she was in a traditional Chinese red wedding dress, despite the groom being in a tradition Western tuxedo. I noted that the traditional Chinese red wedding dress actually is short enough so you can see the shoes. Xyon had commented that in a Western wedding, a regular wedding dress covers your shoes and you actually never see them, yet women would spend like $300 on that pair of wedding shoes. Apparently during the photography session, they would have a dedicated section where they would just take pictures of the bride’s shoes.

Another thing I noted was that the bride didn’t have a red cloth covering her face. I guess modern times doesn’t require that anymore.

Once in, there was the tea ceremony which basically is the bride and groom giving tea to all the elders in the bride’s family. In return, they get presents (jewelry) or red envelopes. Since there were many elders and only 1 tea set with 4 cups, the bridesmaids had to work together quickly washing the cups for the next set of elders. I told Kyle that we’ll probably have to do that for the groom’s family.

Apparently as groomsmen, we also all got a red envelope from the bride’s family. It was then time to head back to the groom’s house.

Back at the groom’s house

Once we got back to the groom’s house, the bride had to step over a burning pan of fire. I remember this tradition in TV dramas, but I forget the reason. They were also given lettuce and some other random vegetable I couldn’t make out, while bowing their heads. Never seen this tradition and had no idea what it is.

The rest was very much the same thing. It’s the tea ceremony for the the groom’s side of the family as they give tea to the elders and the elders wish them luck and fortune and give them gifts. Interestingly enough, the bridesmaids continued with the teacup washing. I guess they don’t trust us guys with the cups as breaking one of them would probably be very bad luck. Less work for us. We just sat around looking cool.

Lunch

The bride and groom had lunch with the groom’s family, while the rest of the bridal party went out to get dim sum. 2 hours later, it was time to head back and head off to the ceremony/reception location.

Ceremony

The ceremony wouldn’t start until 5pm, but we got there around 2:30-3pm. The bridesmaid went off to help the bride get ready for the ceremony, while the groomsmen were suppose to help set up the ceremony/reception area, but we found out that we were more trouble than help, so we just ending up idling around and chatting.

5pm finally arrives and it was time for the ceremony. The ceremony was actually a very traditional Western wedding ceremony. The bride had changed into a normal white bridal dress. There was going to be a judge to be the officiant of the wedding. Before it started, the judge came to us and basically told us how he wanted us to walk down the aisle, where to stand, and so on. I had forgotten who the bridesmaid I was supposed to pair off with and apparently so did 2 other groomsmen. The only one who remembered was Kyle. It was a good thing the bride and bridesmaid remembered.

One thing I found out early on is that married men can’t be groomsman in a Chinese wedding, though they can be brothers (兄弟). I thought it was a pity that best friends can only be groomsman for the one who gets married first.

So the groom and the best man were standing at the “altar”, best man holding a pillow with the rings on it. One by one, the pair of groomsman and bridesmaid walk down. The maid of honor walks down alone. Finally the bride is walked in by her uncle (her father couldn’t make it to the wedding). The judge does his little speech, they say “I do”, they exchange rings, and then they kiss to seal the deal.

After the ceremony, they did the pouring champagne pyramid thingy, bouquet/garter belt throwing, and finally the cake cutting. I found it a bit weird that the cake cutting occurred at this point of the wedding as I would’ve expected it to occur near the end of dinner and the cake itself was dessert.

Photo session

When I first got the schedule, it showed the ceremony ended at 6pm, but dinner didn’t start till 8pm, and was wondering what happened during those 2 hours. Apparently a lot of photo taking. Basically the bride and groom would take pictures with everyone; with close relatives, individual families, friends, etc. They did this with both sides of the families.

While this was going on, people were eating cake. I would have to say the cake wasn’t really that good. The frosting felt like rubber and my fork couldn’t cut it. I did eat the cakey part though as that still tasted like regular cake.

Reception

At the entrance, there was a stand where guests would sign in. There were 2 boxes, one marked groom and one marked bride. As I mentioned in a previous post, instead of a wedding gift, people gave money stuffed in red envelopes (apparently called 人情 – favor). The booth was supposed to be manned by the bridal party, but once again the bridesmaid did most of the work. It’s not like the groomsman did nothing. Okay, who am I kidding, we mostly did just stand around. But the groomsman did help with setting the photo-session area by moving and setting up chairs.

When the photo-session was finally done, the bride and groom gave their speech and dinner started. The dinner menu was very traditional Chinese. For some reason, balloons were popping every so often. We decided that every time a ballooned popped, we had to drink. It was rather amusing. We started throwing crab shells at the balloons to make them pop so we would drink.

Drinking

Somewhere between the photo-session, alcohol was released and all hell broke loose. The only hard alcohol was cognac and that stuff burns, even if you’re sipping it. I decided to add ice to it and make it on the rocks. It was a bit better. Then along comes Hanna and a group of us cheered. She basically took 2 shots of cognac straight down, while the rest of us just sipped. For the next half an hour or so, she kept saying we cheated her as we supposed to go bottoms up when we cheered. All the while, she kept on pouring more cognac into my cup. Evil! I finally gave in and drank half my cup of cognac and she was now satisfied. I was now tipsy and that’s when the fun really began.

Before the bridal party actually got to eat much, it was time for the bride and groom to visit table to table. We had to drink in place of the groom, because as groomsman, we’re not suppose to let him get drunk. At this point, Kyle’s been limiting my alcohol and I’ve basically switched to white wine. People think I was drunk, but I think appear more drunk than I really am. It’s not like I’m acting, but for some reason I get giddy and happy when I slightly inebriated. I’m pretty sure I was just tipsy. I would have to say the only time I’ve gotten drunk was still in Texas. Though one can still have a lot of fun while being tipsy. All in all, I probably had 5 shots worth of cognac and 3 glasses of white wine. One interesting thing I found out is, I didn’t turn red!

Even though Hanna would get us to drink a lot, she wouldn’t drink much herself. She did make a promise that for every love song we sang at the karaoke, she would drink. So near the end of dinner, I went up and sang 童話 (光良). I figured 秋天別來 (伍思凱), 對不起不是你 (陳慧琳), or 愛上一個人 (鄭秀文) wasn’t really suitable for a wedding as they’re sad love songs. It was a bit weird singing 童話 as I was all giddy and I’m not usually giddy or even happy when singing this song. It turned out okay I think… And as promised Hanna took her drink.

Basically people had begun leaving while the bridal party was still eating dinner. As I mentioned, I had a blast. I’m pretty sure the alcohol helped. I also met some really cool people, especially the other groomsmen and brothers. Oh yeah, about Kyle’s chipped tooth. Somehow I managed to throw a thumbs up knocking the wine bottle he was drinking out of and chipping his tooth. I felt really bad about it, even though he was really cool about it. Once again, I’m really sorry.

For 2 hours before leaving, I had basically stopped drinking, and had been drinking a lot of water and tea. People still didn’t believe I was well enough to drive even though I could pass any of the sobriety tests. They finally relented and my driving was fine, or at least I think so. I mean I did make it home back in one piece. I had to drive Hanna, Flora, and the bride’s mother back home, so they could probably speak more about how my driving was. And given the fact I can remember all this speaks for itself on how drunk I really was (or maybe I’m just a drunk with a good memory).

I’ll end this blog post with the words of a much wiser man, “Don’t bring your wife to a wedding.”