One of My Best Buddies' Wedding Day

My apologies to all those following my blog that I have taken so long to blog again. Last Sunday was one of my best buddies' wedding day and I was totally committed to helping him survive his big day with very little sleep in-between. It took me a couple of days to recover those missed hours of rest and when my work piles up, I could only blog until now.

The wedding tested my organizational abilities intensely because I was designated as "The Stage Master" for the entire wedding day and my responsibilities were one long and complicated list. Here's how it started:

1) I received a call from my best friend (the groom) on Saturday night around 8pm, calling me to try to reach his new house as soon as I could because he had "some important details" which he wanted to discuss with me. It turned out to be his entire wedding plan. Haha....

2) After a quick bath and packing my suit and all, I took a cab and reached his place by 10.30pm and he brought me to his LCD computer terminal to show me his "battle plan" for his big day.

3) We sat there and discussed the flow of events until 11pm before another of my best buddy came along - The Changed Man. He would be the main "Operations Manager" for the whole wedding and his responsibilities were even more complicated than mine.

4) By 12am, all three of us were fervourly preparing what we were supposed to do - the groom (aka The Married Soldier) was rehearsing the wedding day's procedures with The Changed Man while I was busy trying to put together the wedding day's soundtrack for all the events a few hours later.

5) 4.30am - Bleary-eyed, all three of us managed the best that we could and forced ourselves to grab some sleep before the big day dawned in a couple of hours. It had been quite a while since I had worked for the near entire length of the night and I was soon fast asleep.

6) 6.30am - Quick Breakfast of two char siew buns and a packet of chrysanthemum tea and I was off to get dressed in white shirt and khaki pants to prepare for the trip to the bride's place.

7) 8.30am - We had a funny encounter (we called it "The moment of hesitation") on the way to the bride's place when the Married Soldier guided the entire convoy to the whole exit on the expressway. The Changed Man then quirked "Hey, buddy, there is still time for you to change your mind". Hysterical laughter followed inside the bridal car and we joked about how the Married Soldier was buying some more time to reconsider the whole thing but his face eventually settled down to that of determination and we safely reached the bride's place at 9.10am.

8) Knocking down the bride's door took longer than expected as The Married Soldier was supposed to dance with a caterpillar on his suit, do some pole-dancing with the poor caterpillar, drink some obnoxious concoction from the bride's friends, retrieve the key from an iron mug filled with hard frozen ice, sing a song for the bride, and piece out the bride's name using slices of bread and only his mouth.

9) 10am - I took a small group of people back to The Married Soldier's new house to prepared for the Tea Ceremony for the bride's parents and I quickly took the opportunity to recharge the two laptops that I was supposed to bring for that day's wedding banquet as well as finish up the wedding soundtrack's song selection and burning the songs onto audio CDs.

10) 12.30pm - The Tea Ceremony commenced and the bride's parents were kind enough to bring lunch to the place and I helped myself to some of the bee hoon, roasted pig and lots of packet drinks. Was really famished and needed to replenish myself since I had less than two hours of continuous sleep on Saturday night, topped by alot of standing for two of Teresa Tseng's roadshows on Saturday.

11) 2pm - With only the bride, groom, The Changed Man and myself left, the four of us began to pack for all the necessary equipment needed to bring to the wedding banquet and it was like at least four big suitcases. We reached the hotel and bridal suite room by 2.30pm and both The Changed Man and myself immediately plugged ourselves to the laptops because I needed to do a final check on the wedding soundtrack as the bride wanted specific songs to be played during some specific events at the hotel. The Changed Man was full of concentration working on his photo montage to be screened at the wedding banquet in a matter of hours.

12) With countless trips made between the bridal hotel suite and the banquet room, both The Changed Man and myself busied ourselves with all the necessary details to tie down with the hotel personnel about the wedding banquet procedures and all these took about three hours before I started to prepare for the wedding solemnization for the couple.

13) 6.30pm - Wedding solemnization was completed and I waited until everyone left the room before I rushed over to the wedding banquet room where the rehearsal for the swordbearers had already started and I was supposed to coordinate the sound and the video montage as well as the photo montage.

14) 7.30pm - The guests were slowly filling in the banquet room and I crossed my fingers, hoping that everything would work out fine for the newly-married couple. The photo montage was finally ready and everything was in place for the night's event to carry on.

15) 8.00pm - The wedding dinner officially started and the video montage, the march-in of the couple, the swordbearers' guard went smoothly and when the first dish was served, both The Changed Man and I heaved a short sigh of relief before we made ourselves a little more comfortable by seating ourselves at one of the dinner tables and eating a couple of the dishes before the second march-in of the couple came along with the photo montage. Dinner was delicious and especially more so for both of us who were famished but dared to eat at ease because we had so many things on our minds then about the proceedings of the banquet.

16) 10pm - The wedding banquet was finally over and both The Changed Man and myself were again the last two persons to leave the banquet room and we watched quietly as The Married Soldier promised to his his in-laws about how he would treat his bride after they were married.

17) 11pm - The Married Soldier, The Changed Man and myself ended the whole wedding with a huge group hug. The Married Soldier was still trying to find words to thank The Changed Man and myself for our parts in the wedding. The two of us just smiled - that's what buddies are for. Amidst the thanks and the promise of a thank-you meal by the newly-married couple, we gave them our warmest blessings. The two of us left the hotel shortly afterwards.

Well, that was it. Time for me to sleep. Tomorrow would be a long day of lessons again. I would not be able to attend Teresa's Chinese New Year Album Promotion roadshow at Bishan Junction 8 but I hope the girl will do well anyway.