Wedding shower

How was the wedding? Well, despite the relentless rain, the groom's eldest sister held her form quite well due to a pair of control top panties (last worn at the 2002 Logies) and everyone behaved themselves except for my uncle Beng who sat with my cousins and led numerous toasts well before the entree was even mentioned.

Here are a few images from the evening:

RIGHT: My father, looking rather pensive before the ceremony. The portrait of my bro and Yuko in the background was later decorated with a garland of flowers.

Earlier that day Rach, Anton and I went to lunch with my cousins Cat, Dennis and Alex, their sister Belina and her hubby Trevor and their son Sean, and Alison (not invited to the wedding for complicated political family reasons). I had managed to forget my keys so had to send an emergency SMS to Sir to tell her to leave them in the mailbox before she went out for the day. Fortunately she wasn't too far away when she received the message.

That potential disaster averted, Rach, Anton and I came back to my apartment to get ready. The cab came within five minutes of its scheduled time and we all hopped in, eager to get out of the rain. At this point I realise I had forgotten the pens that I had promised I would bring for people to sign the guestbook. So we stopped at a newsagency in Mosman to get them and arrived at the venue (Gunner's Barracks) at 3:30pm. And waited. And waited. All that rush for nothing.

Finally the wedding party arrived, fresh from a photo shoot at Bradley's Head (according to my bro it didn't rain while they were there, which was fortunate). BELOW is a pic of my bro taken before all the guests arrived:


What else? I recognised Julian, one of Stuart's friends, who works there. I felt a bit strange, especially as I'd only seen him a couple of weeks ago at Stuart's 21st/farewell so during the night as I refused to order him around and instead directed my requests for champagne to the other waiters.

The ceremony went reasonably smoothly, despite the fact that Yuko looked scared and seemed almost about to faint. They had paid for the ceremony to take place on the lawn below the barracks (if you go to the site it has pics) but due to the rain they had to move it up onto the deck, which meant that half the attendees did not have seats (of course being family we had front seat views). BELOW is a pic of my brother (centre) signing the registry. Yuko's father, Shoji is on the left and a much relieved Yuko on the right:


Everything else was pretty standard procedure. Rach and I had to man the front table, note the attendees and monitor the gifts as well as make ourselves available for photos (unfortunately – or fortunately? – I don't have any pics of me yet). As we took our places at the head table, we could hear uncle Beng's rendition of 'yum seng' (Chinese toast) from across the room but alas, due to the resemblance between my dad and his brother, we could not pretend that we were not related.

The food was good. The service was swift. The drinks were plenty. Mum emptied a glass of red across the table and onto my lap but for some freaky reason the stain disappeared after it dried (is Thai silk a miracle material?).

My uncle Bin (dad's eldest brother) led the official toast. Then we had cake-cutting. Followed by the main course. Then the bridal waltz. Followed by dessert. My mother confessed to me that one of the decorations on the cake broke while under their care (the cake was made by my mum's friend) so they superglued it back together. This was divulged to me on the condition that I TELL NO ONE, not even my sister. But I did, and now it belongs to the internet. I hope no one ate it.

Yuko's father made a short speech in English, despite the fact that he does not speak English, for which there was much applause. My dad, who has never spoken in public, also made a short speech but didn't really get past 'congratulations' material. The maid of honour and the best man had more entertaining, personable speeches about the bride's favourite colour (beige!) and the fact that my brother and the best man met in front of a GALA stand at uni, GALA standing for Gay And Lesbian Association. To this day, neither knows why the other was there at the time.

My brother's speech traversed various topics, such as welcoming Shoji on his first foray out of Japan to thanking the 'matchmakers' for introducing him to "a hot Japanese chick". He thanked mum and dad and mentioned me and my sister ("Adeline, think of me when you write the next Harry Potter... or an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald" / "Rachel, I have just two words for you, 'why Canberra?'") and said something incredibly true: "despite the fact that you never listen to me and do as I say, you both turned out all right".

Then it was pretty much over. If it wasn't my brother's wedding it would have been pretty boring, actually.

P.S: We left our umbrellas there and only realised when we got out of the taxi at Waverton, when it was pouring with rain.