WEDDING DAY - August 6th, 6am
The itinerary showed me that I only had to wake up at 7:30 or 8 am, but because of a possible slight nervousness, I awoke at 6ish. My beautiful bride to be had already awoken, the sly minx, probably trying to escape. I showered and dressed, and just as I was finished getting ready and sipping my usual "milk tea", the long line of random people started showing up at our door. Snarf . . . 8:30 my eye! Obviously, everyone wanted to get a good jump on the proceedings, and seats were going fast . . .

7:45am
I looked cool as a Chinese radish in my resplendant red traditional coat, and sat around chatting with my dad and other relatives and friends from my wife's side. My father (Old Oak), of course, had arrived in China four days earlier in Shanghai, and he had just enough time to recover from the jetlag before the big event. He was staying with us at YJ's parent's house, so by now we were all one big happy family and my dad seemed to be getting along famously with everyone, especially Crazy Eye, my father-in-law. By this time in the day, YJ had already scooted off to get her face done up and hair rewired for the festivities. I and my father were introduced to a girl (friend? distant relative?) who had spent the last four years in Toronto, and her English was passable, although not great. She had trouble with Old Oak's accent, but still managed to translate for my father throughout the morning. Her comment to me when I asked her what she thought of Canada? "It's too cold . . ."
 I chuckled inwardly at her provincialism, thinking about how lucky I was to have found a person like YJ (in a country like China) who had a slightly wider world view, despite the massive restrictions to the contrary.

8:30am
After meeting about 20 relatives who were generally milling about the living room area, I was shepharded out to the elevator and down to a waiting car, having to walk through the sharp gunshot sounds of firecrackers being set off. The custom is, whenever the bride or groom walk in or out of the house, firecrackers go off. CRACK! BOOM! SNAP! I travelled with my father-in-law to the hotel restaurant where we were to be married, and the cold air-conditioning inside the sleek black luxury car was a welcome respite from the already hot weather. It looked to be another over 35 degree day, and the skies were clear.

After the short ride, I was checked in atthe hotel by Crazy Eye and saw where YJ and I would be staying that night. Nice clean place, and the hotel looked to be quite fancy. We had already decided that it might be slightly weird to be spending our first night in the same house as our parents (!?!), and although it was against strict Chinese tradition, adjustments were made in thinking. Then a lot of talking and walking about happened, while I waited around. Crazy Eye and the relatives looked to be in a tizzy over several things, none of which I was able to decipher - especially since they were speaking in Wuxi dialect, not regular Chinese. Eventually we got going again, back to the apartment. As we were arriving, firecrackers were again CRACK! SNAP SNAP CRACK! being set off, and Crazy Eye quickly went ahead of me in the elevator, as he had to be there first . . .

9:15am
Old Oak then met me outside the apartment, and the camera crew (it was all shot on film, can you believe it) set up for one of the many climaxes of the day. He held a large blanket like a satchel over his shoulder, and followed me into the apartment with a small crowd of relatives (sans parents) watching with smiling faces. I march up to "our" (but in this case, "her") door, and knock on it. What follows is the age old tradition of asking to be let into the house of the bride, with a few questions thrown in about why she should let me in, feigning (I hope!) reluctance, etc etc. It's all tongue firmly in cheek stuff. Then, I was finally let in to see my beautiful bride . . . and darnit if she wasn't looking absolutely radiant in red, with her hair all done up fancy, long eyelashes batted about with complete recklessness. We kissed for a bit and posed for pics, while I proposed and she accepted in front of the film crew. Old Oak then laid down the blanket bag on the bed, which had been decorated magnificently with rose petals in the shape of a heart while I had been absent. He then made a show of looking around in the bag for something, finally finding a bunch of eggs and giving them to us. This was to symbolise healthy children, and the symbolism was repeated in the egg and noodles we ate a little afterward. For some reason, we were only to eat one egg (we both had two in each bowl), and we hamed it up and fed each other in front of the video camera guys who were loving it. The long noodles represented a long/healthy life, so since I was hungry at the time, I figure I'm good until at least 200 now . . .

It was all very cute, and we came out of the room to applause and laughter. We then walked over to YJ's parent's room, and we allowed the crew to scoot ahead of us. This was the part of the tradition for asking permission from the parents, and we now solemnly walked before the seated couple. Her mom, let's call her Sweetie, looked very proud and radiant, while Crazy Eye looked to be near tears, barely keeping a hold on his emotions at the time. We both had bowls of sweet bean soup, and offered them to our gender-same counterparts. By accepting the food and eating it, they were accepting the terms of our marriage. Crazy Eye supped every last drop.

11am
For the second time during the morning, I was taken on a roundabout tour of Wuxi to proclaim our marriage to the community. We sat in the back of the comfortably cool vehicle, relaxing for a bit while the chauffeur for the day comandeered the car beside the other cars following us. With the upper torso of the cameraman poking out of the sunroof in the other car, we switched positions constantly as he attempted to get a better shot or more interesting angle. Our entourage stopped for a while so that the happy couple could have more pictures taken by the . . . uh, well, there used to be working waterfountains there. Oh well - we just did an adventurous skip over the makeshift pond, hopping from concrete block to block, despite the somewhat large gaps between. Then we headed back to the apartment one last time, and had a meal with everyone of the same sweet bean soup stuff. I tell ya, it looked liked crap, being brown and all with these peices of what looked like sunken deer turds, but it was delicious! Sweet and tasty!

A CRACK!, SNAP! and POP! later, we had changed into our western dress, and we were off to the site of the actual wedding. YJ looked awesome in her white lace dress, and a happier guy beside her there couldn't have been. Of course, I tried hard to hold up my end, looking all manly and yet boyishly cute in my dark suit and tie. We then arrived at the scene, set up to stand for a while INSIDE the entrance (we looooved the air-con), and greeted the guests as they arrived.

12:25pm
About 300 people waited inside the large reception room, and YJ and I walked smartly in, arm in arm, to the generic bridal march tune. POP! POP! POP! We were showered with coloured shiny substances as we entered, and I resisted the urge to wipe the dazzling shinies from my sweaty brow and hair, choosing regality under pressure instead. It was later to be my slight downfall, as unbeknownst to me a large green halo had miraculously fallen on my gel-darkened hair, making me look like an angelic leprachaun. Good laughs for video. We walked through a series of beautifully decorated arches, and walked on up to the stage as we were followed by my dad (who had walked down the "aisle" with YJ's grandma) and the inlaws. YJ's niece, a cute little gil in a cute little white dress, performed admirably as the rose petal thrower. We then faced the audience, as our emcee introduced us to everybody in both Chinese and English (YJ's aunt, Correct, who had lived in England for many years).

After the short intro, my friend Robin was invited onto the stage as the "priest" of the ceremony - this despite the fact that he has never completed the international pastor's wedding course. The vows were exchanged with the solemnity they deserved, even though we had been, like, officially married since June 1st. But the show demanded vows and ring exchanging, so we did it all, and in the end, I even got an excuse to kiss my beautiful bride. Robin then quickly retired as priest, and then we had to do the Chinese traditional part of the ceremony. We had to do the "three bows" . . .

1. We bowed to the audience of guests, to thank them for attending and approving of our union.
2. We bowed to our parents behind us (showing our butts to the guests at this point) to show our respect to them.
3. We bowed to each other, as a sign of espect for each other. At this stage, there is a little Chinese joke that whoever bows lowest will be the head of the household in the future, and I had the advantage here over YJ - no constricting tight dress - so I bowed lower. Ha ha, I wear the pants!

Then we listened to three speeches: Old Oak went first, and his speech was awesome, made more so by the excellent speaking skills of his Chinese translator, my friend Arthur. They had already pre-translated the speech, so it went off smoothly and was very well received, ending with an emphatic and joyful latvian toast: Lai dzivo sveiks! It sort of means, "may you live on in happiness and health". Then came Crazy Eye's speech, which was translated on the fly by Correct. He seemed very nervous, but got through okay, and I was appreciative of his confidence in my abilities to care for his daughter. And then came the best man's speech, my good mate Ronnie.

Ronnie, as some of you may remember, is the Aussie bloke who runs the pub I frequent in Wuxi, and is a real character, almost a cartoon cut-out of what a western Australian outbacker should look like. He was sooo nervous before giving his speech he drank himself into a more comfortable stupour, but it all worked out. His crazy antics (dropping his speech sheet, talking on the fly, then picking it up again when he couldn't remember what next to say) were well received, and everyone had a good laugh. Sometimes the humour doesn't translate at all from English to Chinese, but here, it was golden. Although I did have to wrest the microphone away when it appeared he would never give it up . . . lol.

1:20pm
YJ and I were starved, but had little time to eat. In about twenty minutes, we stuffed ourselves as much as we could in between people coming to congratulate us, saying hi, introducing us to relatives, etc etc. Everyone was having a grand time, and the display of food had an amazing array of seafood dishes. Then we were done with eating . . . and it was ganbei time!

As a wedding party group (bride and groom, parents and best man) we visited every table, having to down a shot of liquor at each table. This was also a traditional Chinese custom, where we "ganbei" with each guest, and it turned out to be a long and exhausting affair. By the end of it all, Ronnie was smashed (he had to chug a few beers in my place, which was part of his duty as best man), I had actually begun to feel a little drunk (I was cheating by drinking a red wine/sprite mix), and Old Oak and Crazy Eye were very . . . happy. It was all quite good.

Afterward, many of the Chinese guests began to leave as my foreigner friends lingered on as it was still the early afternoon. It was nice at this time to get to talk to some of my friends, and for my dad to meet a lot of the guys. And we finally got to eat some of that fine food . . .

. . . and eventually, we found ourselves in our hotel room just a few floors upstairs from the wedding reception. Some relatives followed us there, in the traditional Chinese way so that they could delay the bride and groom's alone time, a sort of playful jest at the newly married couple. But they didn't last long, and by 5pm we were finally alone as man and wife.

ahem . . . story ends there, folks. ;)