The After

It's been twelve days since the wedding, and Lin Kiat and I are now half a world away from the place where we married.

We've been telling people who've asked that being married is "surreal, but nice", a phrase used in one of our favorite movies.

The wedding weekend went by quickly, and I seemed to be running on adrenaline those two days. (Well, I seemed to be doing that already in the week leading up to the 19th.) Here are some high points (in no particular order of preference):

1. Watching my parents place the veil over my head.

2. Having my oldest and closest girlfriends Des, Van, May and Joan dart about my room as I was getting made up on Saturday morning.

3. Being thankful that I made the right decision to choose my god-sister, Aimai to be my unofficial bridesmaid. It was also great to see her hamming it up with the above-mentioned ladies-in-waiting.

4. Handing my mom a rose just before I took my place beside Lin Kiat at church.

5. Laughing out loud as my dad stepped and stumbled over the train of my dress after he handed me to Lin Kiat.

6. Exchanging our vows and rings (and thankfully, not making any major mistakes).

7. Listening to the beautiful choir made up of our friends and my brother, Randy.

8. Eating dinner at Spageddies in Millenia Walk on Saturday night. Lin Kiat and I had a peaceful dinner on our own and we seemed to be in the eye of the storm, that calm place that exists for moments before everything would sweep around us again on Sunday.

9. Writing my speech while having my hair done (okay, this wasn't really a good thing, I should have done it ages ago, and since I was panicking everything came out garbled, including my handwriting).

10. Walking into the ballroom and seeing my brother on the piano while Mogan sang the song "She". They'd kept this as a surprise, and it was a good one. A lot of people mentioned later that they thought it was a CD playing!

11. Listening to Chris's speech about Lin Kiat. Chris and his wife, Amy, flew out from Michigan to be with us at our wedding. After me, Chris was the person who spent the most time with Lin Kiat during our Ann Arbor days.

12. Watching my oldest friend, Vanessa Tan, up on stage as she made fun of me and said good things about me in the space of four minutes.

13. Admiring the beautiful ballroom that Conrad and Audrey of By Candlelight decorated for our dinner. We had an unconventional rectangular bridal table and white lanterns on each table.

14. Watching all our friends and family members enjoy the dessert buffet (which Lin Kiat and I could not join).

15. Talking to as many people as we could; laughing; hugging; taking pictures.

16. Getting back to our Presidential Suite at last to eat some food packed from our dinner (during the banquet,I'd only had two prawns, some duck skin and a bit of soup).

17. Being surprised by the bottle of champagne, strawberries and rose petal bubble bath that Conrad had prepared for us.

18. Being married at last! (I don't have to look at bridal magazines any more!)

Posted by Monoceros at July 31, 2003 9:23 PM