a new style wedding banquet?
It was a wedding to remember. My wife’s childhood friend Lai Lin’s daughter, Joy, got married (click on pics to see pop-ups). It was held at Barker Road Methodist Church. The sanctuary was modest in decor and size, an old building upgraded: traditional and dignified. It looked Methodist, a decor marked by moderation and pragmatism, accomodating ugly projectors and screens, yet with traditional stained glass that silently declared the praise of God, which drew people’s thoughts beyond.
However it wasn’t the building but the men in SAF officer’s uniform that made my heart skip a beat. The juxtaposing of hard with soft, steel with silk, quickened my senses. The pleasant electric bolt hit me when the white uniformed men marched in with swords, followed by the flower girls, and then the father with the bride. Rev Kenneth Huang gave a good exhortation and led the whole service in an elegant fifty minutes.
The evening banquent at the opulent Shangrila ballroom was fast paced and multi-dimensional with quickly edited video of the morning’s solemnization, and snippets of congratulations from friends here and abroad- a neat way to kill time while the latecomers trickled in. The 
dinner was top notch and was interspersed with lots of frank, affirming and grateful speeches. The emcees and family and friends got people cheering and cracking up and tearing with well prepared brief talks. The father of the bride, Nick, talked about how a father might feel about giving away his daughter. He remembered how his father in law gave out a loud cry at the end of the banquet for he had felt he lost a daughter. Nick said that for him he felt he had gained a son. It made me wonder what I would be thinking when my turn comes around. Anyway, the highlight for me was when Chinese music came on and the bride came in a Chinese wedding sedan with the groom gamely striding alongside. And it even ended with the husband and wife taking the dance floor to live music, and later with some guests joining in.
This banquet was nothing like the weddings of the past.
Empowered by new money; driven by creative expression; well crafted and executed; unfettered by tradition.
Is this a new style wedding: a sign of our young people’s new confidence and liberty of expression?
10 comments July 28th, 2008
