ZLR> Getting Married Continued

In my previous post, I mentioned the marriage of my cousin and all the dilemma faced along the way since it's a shotgun marriage. I promised to write a continuation in that post, after the ********** line, after attending the wedding dinner. However, after the dinner, I discovered so much ridiculous news and unbelieveable stuffs, including some corrections of the previous post, that I think its better to start a new post rather than dragging on the previous one.

1st of all, I would like to say the wedding was quite well done, though simple and poorly planned.
Now for the nonsense and ridiculous events that I found out thru talking with relatives. At first I thought my grand parents refused to attend the wedding due to some superstition believes. Corrections: They are hard core fans of superstitionm, but they barred the wedding dinner because of the family members of my cousin's future wife, especially the mother of the bride.

This elderly looking mother of the bride is really a nuisance to the groom's family and probably a nutcase in society. Her face inevitably exposes her tyrant nature. She's got the kind of angry old women look hung on her face in the photos and for the 3+ hrs I saw her. It was as if the whole world has owned her lots of millions. With her short hair and rather stout figure, many pple thought she was the bride's father instead of mother at 1st glance.

She had pissed of the groom's family for the 1st time the new couple's parents met. On that meeting, the bride's mother asked my cousin to "ru4 zui4"(change surname to that of the bride). The reasons she gave was that she wanted her family bloodline to continue. (Their surname is "mao", same as the PRC communist leader Mao Ze Dong) The groom's parents definately rejected this crazy proposal. Com'on, who in this day will ask her son in law to "ru4 zui4"? Furthermore, the family of the bride is not really small and does not lack males decendents to carry on their blood line. Their request was utterly unbelieveable and down right unreasonable. My cousin and his parents basically trashed it out with the bride's mother, until she finally gave in.

When preparing for the wedding, my grand parents agreed to foot the bills for the bride's gowns. Again the bride's mother came to disagreements with the groom's family. One of my aunts went to book the wedding gowns with the bride's mother. To her horror, the bride's mother made unreasonable demands that were obviously trying to take advantage my grand parents.

Firstly, the bride's mother wanted the package to include an evening gown for herself and her other daughter, whom she wanted to be the bride's maid. Then she wanted a personal make-up artist and hair dresser etc, for the bride, herself and the bride's maid. Furthermore, she wanted to have a number of evening gowns for herself to change during the wedding. All these to be paid by my grand parents, as they promised to settle the bills on dressing. Hey, this is F***ing ridiculous. Fancy a 50+ yrs old women asking for different sets of evening gowns, personal make-up artists for herself, as if she is the bride. Worst of all, all this at the expenses of an elderly 80+yrs old couple who simply forked out their savings to support their grandson's wedding. I think my aunt who went with the bride's mother simply told her to F*** off on the spot, which ended up in extremey heated quarrels.

This unreasonable mother of the bride went on to ask for sponsoring her husband's new western suite for the wedding. I really dunno what was in her mind. This is no wedding at some 5 star hotels and even if it is one there is no demand for anyone to wear a western suite other than the groom, and again why should that be on the accounts of an 80+ yrs old couple. For that my grand parents were utterly pissed off with the bride's mother. They accepted none of her blood sucking requests, and just forked out $2000 for the bride's gown. They also refused to attend the wedding in protest being taken advantage of... by their in laws!

More dramatic scenes to come on the wedding day. To cut cost, we've got relatives and friends to be the camera man, drivers and all other helpers. My dad borrowed them the car. Hours B4 dawn, all these helpers got to wake up early and do their work, so the groom can fetch the bride from her home. At the bride's home, the helpers were to recieve red packets. To their surprise, they only got $4 each. Nobody is asking the bride's family to be generous, but the bride's family shouldn't be so stingy to give only $4 red packets to all these helpful people who make the wedding possible.

The attitude of the bride's family was rather negetive and were un-cooperative throughout. For the traditional tea serving ceremony, the bride's family was late by >1 hour. There was also significantly less well wishers from the bride's side than the groom's side. The reason I heard was that the bride's mother was in poor relations with relatives and had recently angered many of her friends and neighbours. My aunt had catered buffet lunch for poeple who came for the tea serving ceremony. Amazingly, the bride's mother called her daughter to pack some of the buffet lunch home, so that the family dun need to cook lunch... Bish! So kiam.

After the tea serving ceremony, buffet lunch and b4 the dinner, the bride's family called the bride to go home as many as 4 times. For this short period of time the driver rushed the couple between Hougang(the groom's home) and Woodlands(the bride's home) 4 times, tiring everyone in the process. He himself was shagged, cursing the shit he's going thru. For the 1st time, I see a wedding couple rushing to the bride's home so many times, for no significant purpose. Shouldn't the bride be staying at the groom's home for the wedding day as she's supposed to be married out to that family?

In the evening comes the last part of the celebration, the dinner. The whole wedding has been short of everything but nonsense and madness. Even at the dinner, I can feel a kind of tension among some members of the bride's family. The bride's parents were not present to welcome guests to the dinner, and when they were around they seldom speak to anyone. They seldom even smile except toward the end of the dinner when they had to stand outside the restaurant to shake hands with all those who came. The bride's mother had asked for 6 tables so as to be comparable to 7 tables from the groom's side, even though they could only provide 4 tables of names. My aunt booked 6 tables to accomodate to their requests, but at the dinner the bride's side can't even fill 4 full tables. Sigh... what a waste of resources.

Sometimes, I really can't take it on seeing so much unjustifiable ridicule for a wedding. Nothing seemed right. The troubles and nonsenses the groom's family been thru are enough to produce a drama serial. Although my cousin impregnented the gal, there is no need for some people in the gal's family to create an atmosphere of high tension and make life difficult for others. I dunno how my cousin and his family are going to live with such annoying in-laws, but I certainly wishes them the best of luck.