A Fairytale Love - Part I

26th July 2008 marks one of the most important dates of my life. The day when I would put on my wedding gown, the day when I would feel like the prettiest girl on earth, the day when all fairytales and dreams come true.

I didn't theme my wedding 'A Fairytale Love' for fun. Ok. I admit it's cheesy though. But hey, isn't a fairytale on the mind of every little girl who hopes to marry her Prince Charming and then live happily ever after? Cliché as it may be, fairytales are one of the most beautiful things to me. And yes, I'm the kind of hopeless romantic who strongly believes that fairytales do exist in the world we live in.

I must say it wasn't easy planning for this wedding on my own. (p/s: hubby jw was already in sweden and he had no choice but to throw me in front of the bus to make our big day work). To make matters worse, I'm the overachiever who wants to do everything herself and a perfectionist when it comes to my own 'projects'. Since my ROM and customary wedding dates were only 3 months apart, basically I was concurrently planning for both events on top of my 6-day work week. Talk about multi-tasking, women do it best.

Then again, I am very grateful for having the opportunity to be so hands on for my wedding, to be able to conjure up my own creative ideas and add my own touches to this joyous event. As much as I thought I was going to be run over by that silly bus, I miraculously transformed into Wonder Woman for that near 9 months of lonesome planning and surprised even myself at how far my passion can carry me.

So, let's talk about my BIG day. 

Despite all the frenzy and rush of events prior to 26th July, there was an air of calmness and serenity all over me on the actual day. My mindset was: I've already done all I could for today, so why not just sit back and enjoy it? Even if hiccups were to happen, we should just take it easy and trust that things will work out somehow. The most important thing is to smile, relax, feel the love and be the happiest bride there could ever be. 

So early in the morning, we had the traditional bride fetching where the groom will bring his best men and go through a series of mind boggling, physically gruelling and emotionally demanding activities put up by the bride and her bridesmaid. I sometimes wonder why we chinese have to make it so complicated and hard on the men, but hey I enjoyed every bit of it especially when I see my hubby's face all screwed up as he gets the wasabi kick.

So as my Prince of the day brought his troop of soldiers and came galloping to my 3-room flat 'castle', I had my line of defense warriors all geared up at their respective stations too.  

Station #1: Dress up as a Prince, gallop on your white horse and sing to the song "小毛驴" as you parade around the neighbourhood. Well, we didn't want to be inconsiderate and wake our neighbours up so early in the morning, therefore they only sang the song once, which was basically less than 5mins. Chicken feat.

Station #2:  酸'咸'苦辣. Instead of the usual sour, sweet, bitter and spicy, the groom and his brothers were treated to a platter of the four tastes but having 'sweet' replaced by 'salty'. That was because we felt that the bride was the 'sweetest' reward therefore why should you have the luxury of tasting anything sweet prior to that, right? Below were the dishes served.

Fried salted eggs

Bitter gourd vegetable drink

Cracker biscuits with wasabi spread and chilli powder (The highlight!)

Sour lemon juice

The groom was one of those who could take lots of chilli but not wasabi and you should have seen the special (I mean, specially huge) spread of wasabi he received. Well, his poor brothers had to finish it for him but hey, we spotted some of them throwing the biscuits away, somewhat discreetly but not discreetly enough. Well well, cheating. Still, we let them off the hook anyway.

And I was told after the wedding that my sisters were considered to have been very kind to the guys. Can you imagine what could be the worst? I heard at one wedding, the groom had to drink bitter, awful, yucky liquid out of his bride's high heel shoe.. 

Station #3: Which is Cinderella's Shoe? Each of my bridesmaid and myself contributed a shoe to make this work. It was to test if the groom undersood the shoe size and the taste of his wife-to-be. Guess what? Although I had to be hidden in the bedroom till all the tests were over, I could clearly hear the conversations happening in my living room. 

Sisters: Ok, so you can now guess which one is Summer's. We assure you that one of the shoes here belong to her. It's true, just that the shoe was new and never worn before.

Groom: *takes a look at one* Well, I don't think this size fits. *looks at second shoe* I don't think she'll go for this too. 

Sisters: So far so good. Go on.

Groom: *chuckles* This shoe is so orh-biang. Cannot be my wife's.. 

Fyi orh-biang means anything awful, ugly, hideous and anything but good. Thanks dear. You just picked my shoe.

The punishment was for him to wear my heels, hold a girly wand in hand and parade around the room.

Station #4: We moved on the next station which was to guess Snow White's Bite. All seven of the girls took a bite in each individual apple and the groom was supposed to guess which was mine. Yes I know, virtually impossible, that's the point.

The punishment was not so bad, the groom just had to get kisses all over his face from his brothers. After they put on some sexy lipstick.  

Station #5: The last station was to determine which was Rapunzel's hair. Yup, you got it. He had to pick out my hair from the seven strands on the board. Well, this was teeny bit easier since those of different hair colour could be eliminated straight away. Still, a wrong guess led to, well, let's just say the groom and some his brothers had to sacrifice some hair on their hairy legs.Which they did.

Finally, the last test was for the Prince to write down the 10 reasons why he was so truly, madly, deeply in love with his Princess. I'm glad he didn't take too long to write it all down. When I read them after, I was touched because I knew he had used his heart in writing and meant every word he wrote there. So, thanks dear.

Yippie! Finally he was awarded the sword which was the key to the Princess' room. It was a pure moment of ecstasy when I saw him walk into my room with that big beam on his face, looking more charming than I had ever seen him. Phew, I was starting to sweat so much in the room that I thought my makeup would be ruined soon.

There! Our love for each other made our hearts come together and beat as one. I definitely love him for more than the 10 reasons I wrote here.

It was time for the kiss that both of us had been waiting for. My silly hubby almost forgot to unveil me before he kissed me. I was like, Huh? Hello??, but quickly remembered that I was supposed to be all demure and ladylike on that day. Dear, can you unveil me, pretty please?

I can't really describe my emotions as I sat in the car and we drove to his house for the tea ceremony. All I can say is, our hands were intertwined as one throughout the whole journey and I knew this was the start of something good in my life.

As we went through the tea ceremony, it was time to address each other's family as our own. It was a moment of pride and of joy when we served tea to our new mother and father. That symbolized that we each now had two mummies and two daddies. Wow. When my mum and mum-in-law helped me to put on the gold necklaces, I was really delighted and on the verge of tears. No, not because of the gold, but because I could feel their unconditional love for me.

As the day portion of our big day successfully concluded, we could finally take a break before preparing for our big night. Heartfelt thanks to the sisters and brothers for making this morning possible, to the relatives for your lovely wishes and gifts, to my dear for making our love story a fairytale come true.

Continue to A Fairytale Love - Part II