Danny's Wedding Weekend part 3 -- Wedding Details
Part 3 (go back and read parts 1 and 2 to get the whole story) is just an embellishment of the wedding. It's more like an addendum, although I don't want to go back and type that into the title so it'll just be "Part 3." So, Judy mentioned that the lack on description for the wedding itself in the last update was slightly disproportionate to the amount of description for everything else so I'll try to embellish the wedding a little for this post.
So, the wedding color was copper (brown-ish. I'm guessing copper. I dunno tho cuz I didn't ask them) so the flowers were light pink (almost a salmon color), Danny's tux had a copper tie and vest, and Jessica's dress was white with a light copper (almost pale gold) trim and designs (little swirly graphics, nothing elaborate or overpowering). She had a train that was white lace with gold designs. It was beautiful.
Upon arriving at the church, we immediately found a place to sit down. We sat with my uncle's side of the family (his mom and sister and brother) while I went in search of somebody I recognized (I think I had a pertinent question although now I can't quite remember what it was). I found Julie (Johnny's wife and the wedding coordinator for Danny's wedding. She had one of those nifty Bluetooth headsets that I always intended to buy but couldn't reasonably justify getting). The first thing out of her mouth was "3 in the morning?" I rolled my eyes and told her how much flying sucked. She was very sympathetic. Eventually, we were ushered to the groom's side. We sat in very uncomfortable pews (well, they're wooden benches. What do you expect?).
The wedding started with Pastor Allan asking us to pray. We did. It was a'ight. There were 2 worship songs sung. I can't remember which songs but there were worship people playing instruments and two girls singing into mics over to the right (left from the perspective of the stage) of the pulpit. One of the girls was really hot, but that seems inappropriate to concentrate on IN A CHURCH during a WORSHIP SONG so I just concentrated on the fact that I didn't know the words, almost nobody from my family knew the words, and almost everybody else did. It was a little disconcerting.
They did the usual vows ("Do you take this man... Do you take this woman...") during the ceremony. Jess's voice sounded kind of wooden but that's mostly because she was trying not to cry (she failed). Johnny gave Danny the rings. Danny's cost 25 dollars (a fact that he was very proud of. I was a little disconcerted but he gave a good reason. Something about it not being important how much it cost and it's not necessary for the guy's ring to be precious metal or whatever... Actually, upon hindsight, I'm still disconcerted. At least he spent a couple hundred dollars on Jessica's ring) and looked like it cost more. At least 50. (*rolls eyes*) Anyway, they did the ring exchange.
Then it was time for the unity candle (maybe the candle happened before the ring exchange. It's all a blur to me now). Unity Candle, if you don't know, is a fairly recent addition to Christian weddings (like... 30 or 40 years ago). It's a large pillar candle flanked by two thin taper candles. The mothers of the bridge and groom light their respective thin candles (this symbolizes the life that they each had before the ceremony, passed down to them from their family). During the ceremony, the bride and groom use the taper candles to light the pillar candle (this symbolizes them starting a new life together and joining each other as the two fires cannot be separated once they've joined together). Anyway, the candles were higher up (behind the pastor and the pulpit) in this church/wedding. So, Danny and Jessica walked up to the top of the stairs and stood together lighting the candles. This is when Danny pulled out a note card from his jacket pocket and read it to Jessica (I'm guessing these were their real vows and were meant to be secret). They cried. It was nice.
Symbolically giving something back to their families, D+J (I'm getting tired of typing it out every time) gave both sets of parents an orchid. Then they continued the ceremony (more praying. Seriously, I'm not going to type out every time we prayed. I think it was like 3 or 4 or something). It ended with the leaving of the bridge and groom hand in hand and the bridesmaids and groomsmen all left hand in hand too. The ring boy and flower girl left together (although the ring boy tripped at the very end and fell over. It was kinda cute but must've sucked for him. The flower girl was crying later because she let her "little brother" fall. That was kind of touching).
Then the wedding party came back into the church and a slide went up on the projector (using a laptop) with an ordered list of guest groups ("Danny's family," "Jessica's family," "Fellowship," "Harvest Berkeley friends," etc.). They wanted to get wedding photos with everybody and it was broken down into these groups for organizational purposes. We went up during our turn ("Danny's family") and took photos with the bride and groom. They looked a little overwhelmed.
Since we were first or second on the photo list and there were hundreds of guests, we were kind of wandering aimlessly for a little bit. My aunt was getting kind of tired and my dad was getting kind of restless so we decided to drive home (6 miles!) and rest for a little bit before the reception (it was a 2 hour break between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the reception). I drove one car, my mom drove the other and we headed back. Upon arriving home, Chantel and Ariel immediately petitioned me to drive us to Starbucks for coffee. I immediately agreed and we headed out to get frappuccinos.
Of course, since we left after staying in the church for an hour and we drove kind of slowly, plus there was travel time to the restaurant to consider, we only had like 10 min. to get coffee. We were late. It was alright though because we got back just as my aunt and uncle and my parents were heading out the door. We piled into the minivan and I drove us to the restaurant (using the maps my mom downloaded from both Yahoo and Google. She was prepared). I looked for parking but couldn't find any. I finally found a dirt lot down an alley across the street from the restaurant and rushed to join my family.
We went into the restaurant and went up the stairs (except my aunt and my dad who took the elevator because of the wheelchair) to the reception hall. We were half an hour late but they had budgeted an hour of leadtime into the reception so people were still walking around and looking for their seats and there were plenty of people just arriving too. I found Julie and asked her if the dirt lot was an appropriate place to park. She looked at me like I had two heads. "Um... the restaurant has valet service. The wedding party's paying for it." I looked at her like she just explained gravity to me. "D'uh!! Valet!!" I turned around and went back down the stairs 2 by 2. I ran to the car and pulled it up to the restaurant door. The guy gave me a ticket and I ran back up the stairs.
Sitting down next to Ariel, we were placed in the table of Danny's cousins. Me and Ariel from my aunt's side and four other ppl from my uncle's side. They ranged in age from 16 to 25 (ish? I dunno. I frankly didn't ask). They were interesting people. The most interesting was the 16 year old girl who said that for her wedding she wanted a combination of half hiphop and half medieval jousts. I'm pleased there are such weird (in a good way) people in my family tree. =)
So, Danny's 100% Chinese and Jessica's 100% Chinese (I think). Naturally, they served Armenian appetizers. Many a Chinese relative was confused by the hummus. I was very amused by it. It was really good tho. There was hummus, baba ganoush (although with tomatoes I think because it was red and baba ganoush usually isn't red), pita bread, and an herb salad with mint and parsley. There was also a meat platter (sliced meats) and a shrimp platter. It was very tasty (in a Middle Eastern way). Main courses were steak, chicken, or salmon. It was very good, although the restaurant didn't give us steak knives so everybody had to struggle with cutting filets with butter knives. Stupid restaurant.
There were some interesting presentations during the reception as well. The wedding party were all introduced as they came to the wedding party table two by two (one bridesmaid and one groomsman at a time) with introductions that were clearly written by Danny and Jessica. Danny's were all funny (and most included the phrase "And he's single, in case you ladies are interested...") and Jessica's were mostly sweet. There were several toasts throughout the night, including the best man speech and maid of honor speech. Johnny's speech was really touching at the end but really really funny in the middle. See, for Danny's best man speech at Johnny's reception, he had found some of Johnny's old diaries and put some of the entries into his speech. Well, 2 years later, it's payback time. Johnny did the same for Danny and Danny's were equally as funny as Johnny's. Since Jess did her undergrad at Berkeley and Danny did his at UCLA, the presenters did a Cal vs. UCLA competition among some of the wedding party. They did a dance-off, a sing-off, and a kiss-off. It was amusing, especially Johnny's and Jerome's joint rendition of Celine's "My Heart Will Go On." There was also a good slideshow that I missed a part of because I had to take my uncle to the bathroom. Finally, Danny broke out his guitar and sat in front of Jess playing Elton John's "My Song" to her. That was really moving.
The reception ended with cake and dancing. I decided not to participate in the dancing but my uncle really got into it as did Jess's dad, both of whom were out on the dance floor with mid-twenty-year-old ppl dancing to hip hop. It was an amusing sight to say the least. We headed out relatively early because my family's mean age was around 50. Before we left though, I finally managed to talk to Jess as we were leaving. Her first words to me were "3 am?" Oh, jeez. Well, I managed to say the "You look great" and the "It was beautiful" and "Congratulations" without taking too much time up. We left after a fun day and got back in time to hash out how tomorrow would go. Then we all fell asleep.
It was a fun ceremony. I just called Sara today and RSVP'd for her wedding. She told me her mom was freaking out because nobody's RSVP'd yet. So, if you're reading this and you're invited to Sara's wedding: RSVP NOW! Save them some stress. I'm looking forward to the July wedding too because I think no matter what, no matter what goes wrong, weddings are always nice. They're fun and celebrations of joy and love and togetherness. Plus, good food. =) Part 4 to come shortly. Perhaps tomorrow. It's late and I'm tired.
So, the wedding color was copper (brown-ish. I'm guessing copper. I dunno tho cuz I didn't ask them) so the flowers were light pink (almost a salmon color), Danny's tux had a copper tie and vest, and Jessica's dress was white with a light copper (almost pale gold) trim and designs (little swirly graphics, nothing elaborate or overpowering). She had a train that was white lace with gold designs. It was beautiful.
Upon arriving at the church, we immediately found a place to sit down. We sat with my uncle's side of the family (his mom and sister and brother) while I went in search of somebody I recognized (I think I had a pertinent question although now I can't quite remember what it was). I found Julie (Johnny's wife and the wedding coordinator for Danny's wedding. She had one of those nifty Bluetooth headsets that I always intended to buy but couldn't reasonably justify getting). The first thing out of her mouth was "3 in the morning?" I rolled my eyes and told her how much flying sucked. She was very sympathetic. Eventually, we were ushered to the groom's side. We sat in very uncomfortable pews (well, they're wooden benches. What do you expect?).
The wedding started with Pastor Allan asking us to pray. We did. It was a'ight. There were 2 worship songs sung. I can't remember which songs but there were worship people playing instruments and two girls singing into mics over to the right (left from the perspective of the stage) of the pulpit. One of the girls was really hot, but that seems inappropriate to concentrate on IN A CHURCH during a WORSHIP SONG so I just concentrated on the fact that I didn't know the words, almost nobody from my family knew the words, and almost everybody else did. It was a little disconcerting.
They did the usual vows ("Do you take this man... Do you take this woman...") during the ceremony. Jess's voice sounded kind of wooden but that's mostly because she was trying not to cry (she failed). Johnny gave Danny the rings. Danny's cost 25 dollars (a fact that he was very proud of. I was a little disconcerted but he gave a good reason. Something about it not being important how much it cost and it's not necessary for the guy's ring to be precious metal or whatever... Actually, upon hindsight, I'm still disconcerted. At least he spent a couple hundred dollars on Jessica's ring) and looked like it cost more. At least 50. (*rolls eyes*) Anyway, they did the ring exchange.
Then it was time for the unity candle (maybe the candle happened before the ring exchange. It's all a blur to me now). Unity Candle, if you don't know, is a fairly recent addition to Christian weddings (like... 30 or 40 years ago). It's a large pillar candle flanked by two thin taper candles. The mothers of the bridge and groom light their respective thin candles (this symbolizes the life that they each had before the ceremony, passed down to them from their family). During the ceremony, the bride and groom use the taper candles to light the pillar candle (this symbolizes them starting a new life together and joining each other as the two fires cannot be separated once they've joined together). Anyway, the candles were higher up (behind the pastor and the pulpit) in this church/wedding. So, Danny and Jessica walked up to the top of the stairs and stood together lighting the candles. This is when Danny pulled out a note card from his jacket pocket and read it to Jessica (I'm guessing these were their real vows and were meant to be secret). They cried. It was nice.
Symbolically giving something back to their families, D+J (I'm getting tired of typing it out every time) gave both sets of parents an orchid. Then they continued the ceremony (more praying. Seriously, I'm not going to type out every time we prayed. I think it was like 3 or 4 or something). It ended with the leaving of the bridge and groom hand in hand and the bridesmaids and groomsmen all left hand in hand too. The ring boy and flower girl left together (although the ring boy tripped at the very end and fell over. It was kinda cute but must've sucked for him. The flower girl was crying later because she let her "little brother" fall. That was kind of touching).
Then the wedding party came back into the church and a slide went up on the projector (using a laptop) with an ordered list of guest groups ("Danny's family," "Jessica's family," "Fellowship," "Harvest Berkeley friends," etc.). They wanted to get wedding photos with everybody and it was broken down into these groups for organizational purposes. We went up during our turn ("Danny's family") and took photos with the bride and groom. They looked a little overwhelmed.
Since we were first or second on the photo list and there were hundreds of guests, we were kind of wandering aimlessly for a little bit. My aunt was getting kind of tired and my dad was getting kind of restless so we decided to drive home (6 miles!) and rest for a little bit before the reception (it was a 2 hour break between the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the reception). I drove one car, my mom drove the other and we headed back. Upon arriving home, Chantel and Ariel immediately petitioned me to drive us to Starbucks for coffee. I immediately agreed and we headed out to get frappuccinos.
Of course, since we left after staying in the church for an hour and we drove kind of slowly, plus there was travel time to the restaurant to consider, we only had like 10 min. to get coffee. We were late. It was alright though because we got back just as my aunt and uncle and my parents were heading out the door. We piled into the minivan and I drove us to the restaurant (using the maps my mom downloaded from both Yahoo and Google. She was prepared). I looked for parking but couldn't find any. I finally found a dirt lot down an alley across the street from the restaurant and rushed to join my family.
We went into the restaurant and went up the stairs (except my aunt and my dad who took the elevator because of the wheelchair) to the reception hall. We were half an hour late but they had budgeted an hour of leadtime into the reception so people were still walking around and looking for their seats and there were plenty of people just arriving too. I found Julie and asked her if the dirt lot was an appropriate place to park. She looked at me like I had two heads. "Um... the restaurant has valet service. The wedding party's paying for it." I looked at her like she just explained gravity to me. "D'uh!! Valet!!" I turned around and went back down the stairs 2 by 2. I ran to the car and pulled it up to the restaurant door. The guy gave me a ticket and I ran back up the stairs.
Sitting down next to Ariel, we were placed in the table of Danny's cousins. Me and Ariel from my aunt's side and four other ppl from my uncle's side. They ranged in age from 16 to 25 (ish? I dunno. I frankly didn't ask). They were interesting people. The most interesting was the 16 year old girl who said that for her wedding she wanted a combination of half hiphop and half medieval jousts. I'm pleased there are such weird (in a good way) people in my family tree. =)
So, Danny's 100% Chinese and Jessica's 100% Chinese (I think). Naturally, they served Armenian appetizers. Many a Chinese relative was confused by the hummus. I was very amused by it. It was really good tho. There was hummus, baba ganoush (although with tomatoes I think because it was red and baba ganoush usually isn't red), pita bread, and an herb salad with mint and parsley. There was also a meat platter (sliced meats) and a shrimp platter. It was very tasty (in a Middle Eastern way). Main courses were steak, chicken, or salmon. It was very good, although the restaurant didn't give us steak knives so everybody had to struggle with cutting filets with butter knives. Stupid restaurant.
There were some interesting presentations during the reception as well. The wedding party were all introduced as they came to the wedding party table two by two (one bridesmaid and one groomsman at a time) with introductions that were clearly written by Danny and Jessica. Danny's were all funny (and most included the phrase "And he's single, in case you ladies are interested...") and Jessica's were mostly sweet. There were several toasts throughout the night, including the best man speech and maid of honor speech. Johnny's speech was really touching at the end but really really funny in the middle. See, for Danny's best man speech at Johnny's reception, he had found some of Johnny's old diaries and put some of the entries into his speech. Well, 2 years later, it's payback time. Johnny did the same for Danny and Danny's were equally as funny as Johnny's. Since Jess did her undergrad at Berkeley and Danny did his at UCLA, the presenters did a Cal vs. UCLA competition among some of the wedding party. They did a dance-off, a sing-off, and a kiss-off. It was amusing, especially Johnny's and Jerome's joint rendition of Celine's "My Heart Will Go On." There was also a good slideshow that I missed a part of because I had to take my uncle to the bathroom. Finally, Danny broke out his guitar and sat in front of Jess playing Elton John's "My Song" to her. That was really moving.
The reception ended with cake and dancing. I decided not to participate in the dancing but my uncle really got into it as did Jess's dad, both of whom were out on the dance floor with mid-twenty-year-old ppl dancing to hip hop. It was an amusing sight to say the least. We headed out relatively early because my family's mean age was around 50. Before we left though, I finally managed to talk to Jess as we were leaving. Her first words to me were "3 am?" Oh, jeez. Well, I managed to say the "You look great" and the "It was beautiful" and "Congratulations" without taking too much time up. We left after a fun day and got back in time to hash out how tomorrow would go. Then we all fell asleep.
It was a fun ceremony. I just called Sara today and RSVP'd for her wedding. She told me her mom was freaking out because nobody's RSVP'd yet. So, if you're reading this and you're invited to Sara's wedding: RSVP NOW! Save them some stress. I'm looking forward to the July wedding too because I think no matter what, no matter what goes wrong, weddings are always nice. They're fun and celebrations of joy and love and togetherness. Plus, good food. =) Part 4 to come shortly. Perhaps tomorrow. It's late and I'm tired.
posted by Chris "Krang" Yang | 12:37 AM
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