Best Wedding Ever!

Dan, Will, and I spent last weekend celebrating the weddings of our friends James and Davy (pronounced Dah-vee). You may have noticed that I typed "wedding-s" above. No, that's not a typo. James and Davy got married 2 times. They also had 2 receptions. Why make the busiest day of your life happen twice? You see, Davy was born in Cambodia and James was born in not-Cambodia (also known as Michigan). So on Saturday they had a 4-hour long Cambodian ceremony and Sunday they had a 30-minute Christian ceremony. Of course these events and all events of the weekend were tracked in the master schedule, a 24 page document. The master schedule had various off-shoots. Depending on what your role was in the wedding, your schedule might have only been 8 pages long.

The Cambodian ceremony involved a small parade which would have been bigger if it had not been raining outside. The groom has to bring presents to the bride's parents' house to show his worthiness. There were various Cambodian snacks and a lot of fruit. Will liked this part of the ceremony because after it was over, we got to share in some of the snacks and fruit. Will ate 4 tiny bananas and some tasty grapes. Basically Will enjoyed a lot of the wedding events as they were very colorful, involved food, and there was lots of music. Plus, everyone thought Will was a well-behaved baby. He was pretty good because he was happily eating most of the time. The other factor was that when he was cranky, there was a lot of stuff and music going on so no one could hear him being cranky.

Will Dancing to Cambodian Music

The Cambodian ceremony required multiple costume changes. You know, kind of like a Super Bowl half-time performance. For James, this meant that he got to wear three different sarongs. And they were color-coordinated with Davy's outfits. And they were sparkly. It was great.

The Green Sarongs

The Gold and Red Sarongs

James in Sparkly Sarong

If you ever get a chance to talk to James about his fancy clothes, just ask him about the "wardrobe malfunction" that happened with the green sarong. By the end of the ceremony, I'm sure James would agree with Mike's observation that he was longing for the restrictiveness of a tuxedo. And, yes, he showed up at the reception in a tux, but Davy wore a beautiful blue outfit.

Davy Mingling at Reception
(mingling was in the master schedule)

Obviously Will was also in blue and looked kind of cute with his tie that coordinated with Dan's outfit. They were just getting into the color-coordinated spirit of the event.

Dan and Will in Coordinated Ties

As I mentioned, food was a big part of the wedding celebration. For those of you who know my eating habits, you might wonder what in the world I would find to eat at a Cambodian dinner. It turns out that picky people can change. No, I didn't change in my excitement to celebrate a Cambodian wedding. Rather, after spending 5 months in Japan, my tastes changed. Prior to going to Japan, there were basically 2 lists: Foods that I do eat and Foods that I don't eat. Foods that I do eat include: all white meat chicken breast, turkey, potatoes, brocolli, pasta, fajitas, bread. Foods that I don't eat include: anything not fully cooked, most things with a non-tomato based sauce, viengar, salad with a dressing other than ranch, and especially mushrooms.

While in Japan, I had to throw out the lists and eat anything that I could stomach. Fortunately I had Kishi-san ordering every chicken dish on the menu for me whenever we would go out to eat on official work dinners. Also fortunate was the fact that I was pregnant and "couldn't eat fish" and other things that were "not good for the baby" (like mushrooms). So I could get away with not eating some unappetizing things.

I didn't realize it while I was in Japan, but when I got back I noticed that I was open to eating more foods. For example, Dan and I went out on a date for White Day this year. (Thanks Gina for babysitting! It was our first date since Will was born.) I actually ate the salad that had some sort of vinegar dressing on it.

So what interesting things did I eat at the Cambodian reception? I ate steak. It wasn't well done. This is a big step for me. There was also this "salad" that I ate. It had pig's ear and jellyfish in it. This is a giant leap for Midwesterners everywhere.

In addition to food, there was also entertainment and dancing at the reception. One of Davy's nephews is part of a hip-hop dance group. So there was hip-hop dancing for a while. Will didn't do any hip-hop moves, but he did get a head start on the dancing when he had the dance floor all to himself.

Will Getting Down

The first song of the evening was the Father of the Bride singing karakoe to the Billy Ocean song, Carribean Queen. He was pretty good. Normally I would expect the Father of the Bride to dance with the Bride, but that happens all the time. This was much better. If we have a daughter, Dan is totally singing at her wedding. Maybe something by the Fresh Prince.

Now there were some similarities between the Cambodian traditions and your typical American tradition. We got to throw some sort of rice-like substance at James and Davy. I think it was the fuit seeds of a palm tree. But we didn't just throw it at them for a few seconds while they made a quick departure. Oh no, we got to throw it at them for over a half hour. This made great content for James' brother's brilliant toast that he gave the next day. It was the best toast I've heard by a best man at a wedding, ever.

Everyone likes to throw stuff at the bride and groom

We had a great time at the Cambodian ceremony and reception. We got to see a lot of people who I hadn't seen in a long time. We got to meet new people and learn about a different culture. But after all of that, we were only done with one wedding.

Sunday brought the Christian ceremony and reception. However, it didn't start until afternoon. We managed to fit in a non-wedding event. We drove to Brenham, TX to hang out with a former co-worker of Dan's, Frances. One of the big things in Texas is the blue bonnet flowers. So, of course, we took pictures of Will in the field of blue bonnets.

Blue Bonnet Field

Now driving out to Brenham wasn't the only non-wedding event we participated in. On Saturday, there had been a break in between the Cambodian ceremony and reception. We rested, then went with Dan's cousin, Kimberly, and her son, Noah, to the Houston Children's museum.

Going to the Children's Museum made me realize that I need to find some sort of similar place to take Will all the time in Los Angeles. As far as I can tell though, the LA Children's museum is under construction and will be located near Burbank.

Noah and Will at Children's Museum

Anyway, back to Wedding II... It was a pretty cool ceremony. James' dad officiated which was nice. It was short and sweet. One of the scripture readings was particularly interesting. The girl reading it, one of Davy's nieces, I think, had asked James to email her the verse so she could practice. So she took the printout of James' email up to the gazebo stage. She read the verse, then kept going to his sig quote by Lou Piniella, "Statistics are like bikinis; they show a lot, but not everything." (quote source not confirmed, might be from Toby Harrah.) It was the funniest thing I had ever heard at a wedding. And everyone knew that it came from James' sig.

The reception was neat for me because it turns out that James' cousin Dusty was in my group of friends in high school, so we got to catch up.

Dusty, Angela, Will, Dan at Reception

The wedding cake was great. We weren't planning on giving Will cake, but ever since his birthday party where we introduced him to it, he recognizes it and asks for it quite persistently. I am actually shocked that he hasn't learned the word for cake just so he can let us know that he really, really, really wants it. Now! It is a great deal for me because in an effort to be a better mom and cut down on Will's overall cake sugar consumption, he gets to eat the cake part, but I sacrifice my waistline to eat the frosting. I like the frosting better anyway. Actually wedding cake frosting is the reason I go to weddings in the first place.

Will Loves Cake

It was a crazy busy weekend, but we managed to survive. We had tons of fun. We have two upcoming weddings to go to, one in June and one in January. Will they be as exciting and culturally interesting as this one? We shall see.