Vietnamese Wedding...

Well, not being the traditional Vietnamese groom, my parents-in-law didn't really insist on a traditional wedding. I have to admit, I did kind of want one. However, given the circumstances, we did the closest to typical as we could. Let me be your guide to a Vietnamese Wedding.

First, there is the part that I could not do without having my parents there. Being so far away, I had no representation of my family there. It was all Anna's side of the family only. So that made it all the more awkward.

Normally, the groom and his parents will go to the house of the intended bride. The groom's dad then speaks to the bride's dad and asks for the son to marry the daughter. Usually a gift is offered. They don't give cows or anything. But I wouldn't be surprised given the current nature of the country if you heard brides boasting about how many scooters were traded for them.

Since this is done the day of the wedding, the actual agreement was done long ago - this is all for show and custom. The bride's family accepts and then the groom is taken to the families ancestral alter in the house (they all have one) to introduce him to the ancestors.

Then both sides of the family go to the groom's house (again you can see why this was not so easy to do for a Vietnamese and a Phoenician). At the groom's house the bride-to-be is taken to the ancestral shrine there and introduced as well.

After that, it's time for lunch. The families eat and talk and blah, blah, blah.

Ok, so all of that stuff is what we skipped. But the rest we did.

In the evening, the families meet up at a rented ball room or banquet hall.

The sign outside the building to let people know that this is the place.

There is an outside sitting area for the early comers to sit and mingle until it's time to make it inside the big room.

This is the "big room" just before it was ready to be filled with guests.

Anna and I stood by the entrance greeting every single person that came through that door. That may not sound that impressive since it was only her family and none of mine. However, that ended up being just over 300 people!

As score after score of people came walking by, I had the chance to put my learned Vietnamese greetings to the test. This only proved how bad my language learning skills were.

You see, in Vietnamese, there is no "you" or "me". Rather, you say a special word that describes your relation to them. For example, when I see my wife's aunt, I don't say, "Hello." No, I say a translation of, "Male nephew says hello to older female aunt." And if I'm saying hello to an uncle it's a different set of words. If it's an older or younger uncle the word changes even still. Not just the word I call them, but also the word I call myself to them. Yeah, it's all very complicated. Just to play it safe I often just said "Chau chau chu" to every older woman. Of course, it looks on paper as if I'm repeating words. Nope, I'm not. Don't forget the inflection. Believe it or not, the inflection makes all of those words very distinct in meaning. I usually would let Anna greet them first and I copied her. I think I only called myself a girl a couple of times...

The language barrier was obvious to the guests as well. The older uncles that couldn't speak much English would simply say the one English word they could think of for such an occasion, "Happy...happy..."

Once the crowd filled the room I realized just how many people were there.

And this is only half the banquet hall!

And then it was time to begin. Anna's parents hired an MC. This MC must have a great job. He shows up in a suit, says about 10 lines, and leaves. And he isn't very poor for it either.

In a radio voice that spoke what sounded like gibberish, the MC said something that Anna recognized as instructions for us to come to the front, so we did.

And then we stood on the stand as the MC said one more line of gibberish. Then Anna's parents came up. The MC handed the mic to Anna's dad, he said something. Then the MC said some more meaningless words.

At this point, I was handed a bottle of wine.

I had no idea what to do with it. Well, I knew that I was supposed to open it, but only about 30 seconds before it was handed to me. My wife sort of forgot to mention to me that I'd be opening a bottle of wine at our wedding. Normally, this is no big deal for someone. However, for a very Mormon boy such as myself, this was all new territory.

So, there I am, on stage with an MC speaking gibberish to me and 600 eyes of my closest strangers staring at me to open a bottle I had just met. Yeah, I know a thing or two about pressure.

After what felt like eternity, the cork flew off to the side and Anna and I began pouring wine onto a tower of glasses making our own fountain.

As my face suggests, I was not sure I was doing anything right.

At last I had poured two bottles and was done with that. We were not handed nearly enough wine to fill the cups, but since it took us so long to get where we did, I guess everybody was tired of waiting and wanted to get to the food. The MC said one more sentence and then was off to cash his hard earned check.

Meanwhile, Anna, my in-laws and I went around to each and every one of the 300 guests to clink my cup with them. Of course, this was after Anna and I switched to grape juice to the amusement and shock of the guests that noticed.

By the time that we had finally finished cheering with each of the guests, the first of the guests were finishing up diner and ready to leave. Anna and I sprinted to the door to then say good bye to them, one by one. Again with the "chau chau chu" and whatnot.

Once the guests had left, it was just the small group of immediate family left. So the very few of us got on the stage to take a picture or 60.

Some of my new aunts and uncles could not be there, so that's why the group looks so small.

Most of our wedding gifts were envelops with cash in them. But we did get a couple of actual gifts that we opened there.

After that, we got to eat any leftovers there were to be had. We were hot, sweaty and tired after all that. It felt so great to get into Anna's parent's house once again. Just when I though Anna and I might enjoy some honeymoon time alone in the hotel, her and her parents pulled out the pile of envelops and began counting money.

Seeing as how my wife is an accountant, I should have guessed a detailed and accurate ledger of the intake. It took over 3 hours with all of us working to get the mess organized and accounted for. Anna was taking meticulous notes but not because she wanted to know what to say in the thank you letters. No. I learned that night that everybody in Vietnam does that because when those guests have children who get married, they expect the same or more in return. To me, that cheapened the whole purpose of calling it a "gift." I think they should just call it a low interest loan, since that's what it apparently is. I fell asleep during the tedious process.

When I awoke, I saw piles of money that accumulated to about 4 million dollars...uh, that's VND, not USD. Yeah, I was excited, but then I remembered that Vietnamese money is very much like Monopoly money. It's colorful, playful, and worth the same. Anna and I owed much to her parents and we able to convince them to keep the money to help offset the costs of the wedding.

After that, Anna and I slowly stumbled our way back to our hotel and fell asleep instantly. We knew that our rest would be short. The following morning, we were off to our second honeymoon.