Monsoon Wedding + Wedding Banquet

Dressed up and ready to go.
The breaking of the chocolate (like a Chinese or Indian Pinata)
The happy Bride and Groom
Sophia and some of the other lovely significant others.

Two great movies - Monsoon Wedding and The Wedding Banquet. One looks at an Indian wedding and the other a Chinese wedding. (http://monsoonwedding.indiatimes.com/)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107156/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107156/ . These two films formed my only real opinion as to what either event might be like. A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to be invited to the Singapore wedding of the head of my office and his new bride.

He is Indian and she is Singaporean Chinese. The invite said "formal attire Chinese/Indian preferred".

We were excited about the prospect of attending. Sophia had worn her beautiful sari recently at my sister Rachel's wedding in Milwaukee and she also has a custom made cheongsam in her wardrobe (both highlighted in earlier blog entries). Until the last minute she wasn't sure what she would wear. Me, on the other hand, I had nothing. A tux, a pair of double happiness cuff links - not even a Chinese or Indian tie. No statement to make there. Several of my work colleagues had filled me in on their wardrobe choices. One guy bought and Indian outfit at Mustafa's, another had a custom made Chinese jacket. I ventured over to Shanghai Tang, the Prada of traditional Chinese clothes. It costs about $100 to walk in the door. http://www.shanghaitang.com/shanghaitang/ After looking at many clothing items I opted to put together an outfit that would go with my tux. I bought a nice white Chinese shirt with cool cloth buttons and an Chinese collar ($200). I also worked with the lovely store clerk to find another accent piece. There were no ties and the shirt wasn't French cuffed so she moved my into the silk scarf. There were several colors - black with lime green (too loud for anyone except perhaps my Dad), black with orange (a little too Halloween) and then black with red - "Red is an auspicious colour", said my friend, "and it looks good on you!". Sold ($150)!

Anyway, Sophia wore the sari, which I am now an expert at wrapping her in. I put on the Chinese/American tux. We arrived at the luxurious Oriental Hotel and headed to the reception. The crowd was very handsome - women in Chinese, Indian and Western clothing and men in equally colorful and varied garb.

The groom looked very happy and was dressed in a smart looking Indian suit. The Bride entered the banquest room later in a western style wedding gown and then changed into an Indian gown. They had just returned from a 5 day wedding festival in Mumbai so this was the culmination of the week long festvities.

The banquet was really well done. There were many course each with significance to the Chinese. We had shark fin soup, abalone, duck, mushrooms, Crispy chicken (yes the head was on the platter), fish and more. For dessert there was a large tin foil orb placed on each table along with a mallet. One of the guys at our table hit the orb which when unwrapped was a hollow, dark chocolate ball filled with chocolate truffles. Good stuff.

There was even dancing, mostly to some upbeat Indian music part clubby hip hop, part Bollywood. All in all it was a really nice night!