I went to my college friend’s wedding yesterday. I knew she is religious and as I received the invitation, I found out that he is too. It’s a match made by God, essentially.
I have been to many weddings: a full mass in beautiful cathedral and Christian-light ceremony which I really don’t mind. I’ve been to the we-made-our-own-tradition, and this-ain’t-about-God/gods ones, and those are usually quite fun.
But this one totally takes the Holy Roller cake.
It’s a little bit frightening when every sentence of the introduction of the ceremony had either God or Jesus Christ in it. And then realized that most of the people there were from the bride and groom’s respective churches.
The speech about marriage being a union of a man and a woman as intended by God, now that I came to expect. I remembered going to a Catholic wedding once with my gay “fiance” Cheech as my date. (Hey, Cheech did say if Brandon wasn’t going to marry me, he would do it just so I didn’t have to leave the country. So yeah, he was my gay fiance! Haha!) We were late so we were in the back of the church anyway, but when it got to the man and woman part, we were rolling our eyes and stifling our giggles in the back.
Here, I rolled my eyes to myself and softly “pssshh”. In hindsight, the folks I heard singing the hymn behind me later on probably were damning me to hell the entire time I made side comments like that.
Especially during the submissive wife section of the speech.
I thought for a second I had traveled back through time. It was said at least 3 times that the wife is made out of the husband, and must be submissive to him and follow him. He is to follow Jesus and she is to follow him. He may not understand you or anger you, but you should listen because he is your husband and you have to trust that he is right.
Did the wind blow so hard we landed in 1910? I wasn’t really sure. Until the kid next to me stared playing with his iPhone out of boredom.
To each, his/her own flavor, I understand it and respect it.
Another friends’ wedding was the complete opposite to this one. Theirs was a spiritual union. They mentioned that love is for all and marriage is for all as well. That the couple would listen to each other and be supportive of each other’s choices. Perhaps those on the other side of the gay marriage fence would be offended by someone turning their wedding into a bit of a political soap box. Well, that’s how I feel about getting Jesus preached at.
But, man, having to sit on a windy and chilly rooftop for one-hour while getting Jesus beating into me totally gave me a glimpse into what my personal hell would look like.
This lovely heavy-handed Christian flavor also continued through the reception which is, you might have already guessed, a dry one.
Thank GOD the bar was only a few steps away. I kept running into the bride’s cousins there. LOL.
However, the redemption came with the Chinese banquet.
11 fucking courses of fantastic Chinese food, y’all.
There were only 8 of us at the table up through Course 4 before 2 of them left. We did pretty good considering one of the friends doesn’t eat seafood.
- Appetizers, and there were five: roasted duck, jelly fish salad, seaweed salad, marinaded tofu and mushrooms, barbecued pork, and sliced beef.
- Honey walnut shrimp
- Scallops, snow peas, carrots
- This green soup with seafood bits in it. Funny part is I asked the waiter what soup it is. He said it’s vegetarian. Me: Oh, ok…wait is that shrimp? Him: Yes. Me: Er…ok…
- Beef and asparagus sauteed in some wonderful sauce and served in this crispy noodle bowl. Our friend Ed called in “Poetry on a Plate”.
- Wonderfully crispy skin fried roast chicken with wonderfully moised meat, served with shrimp crackers.
- Abalone with bok choy and shitake mushrooms.
- Steamed whole fish with ginger and other spices. De-boned whole at the table. It was pretty cool. Sweet, sweet fish. So very tasty.
- Egg fried rice with whatever was left in it: a little barbecued pork, some shrimps, some scallops, some chicken.
- Mango pudding. Lovely, not too sweet little cups of heaven.
- Cake: you either get chocolate cake with whipped cream filling or yellow cake with strawberry cream.
.
The holy rolling ceremony may have turned me off. But the food definitely got me thanking the Lord!
And I’m also thanking God to have blessed me with the diversity in my group of friends. So far, nobody kills anybody over their political or religious believes.
Not yet.