A Wedding

This past Saturday our church celebrated a very special event:  the wedding of Paul Liu and Anthea Lin, both members of CERC.  After only one wedding I still have a lot to learn about Chinese weddings, but I thought I would share a little bit of what I have learned, and some pictures.

The wedding day begins early for the wedding party.  The groom goes to the bride's house (Paul got there at 7:15 a.m.), where her bridesmaids are waiting to let him in.  However, he is not allowed in until he has completed certain "tasks," which might include eating strange foods, juggling, or whatever else.  Once he has completed all those tasks, he is allowed to see the bride.

The following picture (isn't it BEAUTIFUL?!) was right outside the door of church when we arrived.  I wondered how that could be! Someone told me that a couple months before the wedding, the couple gets together, dressed for their wedding day, and has a big photo shoot.

Our Megan was asked to be a flower girl in this wedding, along with another little girl named Dazzire.  She was very nervous beforehand but did a great job and had a good time!  

The bride does not come to church until the wedding is ready to begin.  The attendants and groom were already at the front of church, along with my husband, who sat down at the front probably 20 minutes before the wedding began.  He was supposed to be with an emcee, but that man got sick on the day of the wedding, so my husband did the whole thing himself.  That, of course, is normal in the U.S., but here there are additional parts to the ceremony that the emcee normally would have done.

When the bride had arrived and was ready to go, my husband announced something like, "Will everyone please arise for the glorious entrance of the bride."  We all stood up as the pageboy (ringbearer), flower girls, maid of honor, and the bride and her father walked down the aisle.  The bride came a bit after the others, but with the same music and not completely on her own like in U.S. weddings.

The "pageboy" is the groom's brother, Given.

We have the giving away of the bride at that point, but in this wedding it was later.  In the middle of the ceremony the question was asked, "Who gives this woman to this man in marriage?" and the father raised his hand.

During the ceremony they had the signing of the marriage license.  In the U.S. this is done with the best man and maid of honor as the official witnesses of the wedding.  Here it is usually the parents, especially the fathers.  However, because Pastor Lau has been in the hospital for several weeks, including on the wedding day, the mothers signed the marriage license.  (The difference in last name between Pastor Lau and his son Paul Liu has something to do with the Chinese characters that make up that name.)  The pastor of First Evangelical Reformed Church, Pastor Chong Nam Tuck, had to sign this license and pronounce the couple husband and wife, as my husband is still not licensed by the government to perform marriages in Singapore.  I believe there are two months out of the year that he can request this and receive his license from the government.

After the recessional, the couple immediately re-entered the sanctuary, being introduced as "Mr. & Mrs. Paul Liu" and warmly welcomed by the audience.  Then the marriage form was finished, another song was sung by the audience, the youth of CERC sang a song, and the couple gave speeches of thanks.

Following the ceremony there were a number of pictures taken of the couple with different groups of people: his family, her family, their parents' friends and colleagues, his friends, her friends, people from Covenant ERC, people from First ERC, and people from other churches.  After pictures there was a luncheon at church.  From the way it was set up I was guessing it was similar to our wedding receptions, but I can't say, because I had left for the airport to pick up our friend Jeff Kotman!

Besides that luncheon, there is a big wedding dinner at night.  This is typically an 8-10 course meal, served with much fanfare.  It really was neat to watch the servers come out to serve the first course, with all the lights off, music playing loudly, and a colorful little light blinking on each tray of food as the servers arranged themselves all around the room.  Each course is placed in the center of the table, and the 8-10 people at that table all reach in with their chopsticks to take whatever food they want.

The above picture shows the first course, which included a number of small things.  Most had long names, so I won't repeat them all here, but the little squares were some delicious pork; clockwise from that is "marinated sea blubber" (jellyfish), "roasted suckling piglet sliced crackling skin," and a chilled scallops with fresh fruit combination.  Somewhere in there is spicy cold chicken too.

The second course--scallops and cuttlefish with greens in chili sauce

(Oh, sure, and someone is digging in with a spoon after I told you we used chopsticks! :-) )

The fifth course--deep-fried fish

The wedding was a major event in the life of the congregation.  We were glad we could experience it with them.  We wish the couple God's richest blessings on their marriage!