"No Pig -- No Wife!"

Here is an "abridged" version of Duc's wedding. The morning started at 8:30 when we gathered with all of the groom's friends and family at a house and waited for the roasted pig. We waited with Duc's brother Hua's family and a handful of friends for an hour before the pig finally showed up, but "no pig, no wife" so our procession of gifts for the bride's family couldn't depart until the blessed beast arrived.






With the pig leading the way, the groom's procession made its way to Cyan's house with Duc leading the way holding her bouquet. Next was Hua's father who would ask Cyan's father if he would allow Duc to marry her. Each subsequent person in the procession carried a metal box draped in red fabric full of something for Cyan's family I guess to compensate for the loss of their daughter. Andrew carried the pig with Hua because that is the role of the brothers. I guess the pig did the trick because the tea, fruit, booze and jewelry were enough for Cyan's father to give the OK and Hua's dad gave the signal to come inside.


This is one of my favorite pictures of the day. Hua's wife takes the last of the gifts inside before the wedding starts. Once the groom's party was inside, the wedding began . . . without the bride! The pig is front and center but a large portion of the wedding happens with out the bride present. What does the wedding have to do with a bride anyway?

The ceremony is a very elaborate ritual of incense waving and tea drinking. (Duc doesn't drink tea so he held the cup and then poured his out. Marco did the same but no one told me that was an option so I drank my thimbleful of tea. I think Marco was more worried about germs than the word of wisdom issue. I just went for he double whammy.) After drinking tea over the pig, the wedding party headed outside for a ring ceremony and pictures.


This is my other favorite picture of the day. Check out those 7 inch heals. She wore these all day and all night long. With out shoes Cyan is about 4 foot 10 and maybe 90 pounds. (It was a little funny how all the girls wore crazy high heels and still were only as tall as my elbow.)

Cyan wore the traditional (and fabulous) red attire to the morning wedding but come evening . . .



. . . shazzam, out came the gownless wedding strap encrusted with beads, pearls and golden thread embroidery complete with 15 foot train. (She still had on her acrylic Cinderella heals.) BTW - If you want to feel dainty and frail, don't stand next to the Asian princess!

The evening party was an intimate little get together -- a TEN course Chinese dinner for 250 plus of Duc and Cyan's closest friends and family. They even hired a party MC to keep the evening moving with Vietnamese jokes and Karaoke. I think her real job was keeping the slimy drunk guys off of the beautiful singing girls. Below she is trying for the third time to convince Andrew to get up and show his stuff on the Karaoke stage while Liz paroozes the song list. And for the third time Andrew answered NO!

The wedding guest sung all night long and EVERYONE COULD SING. I was incredibly impressed with the talent. Hua was the only one who wouldn't make the American Idol cut.

Above is Liz before the 10 courses which included the pig Andrew carried earlier that day, squid, seaweed, duck, dumplings, scallops, fried coconut pudding, fried coconut shrimp, peanut brittle, egg drop soup, piles of lobster, roasted fish, fried rice, sweat bean soup, rice cookies -- oh, and then finally the cake. Below is Liz at about course #8. STOP ME BEFORE I EAT AGAIN!

The whole day was beautiful. And latter that night, I asked Jesus if I could come back in my next life as Cyan the Asian Princess.