Insights into a Bimbo's Mind

The Wedding

Narrrling and I, we finally tied the knot officially and for the 3rd time recently on February 11th, 2006. Yes, for those who are wondering why for the third time, it's because if you remember, the first time was when we signed the official papers in Putrajaya on May 25th last year, then we signed the 2nd set of official papers in Den Hague on 12th Sept at the end of summer last year and then this time the final dance and wine party at the Cyberlodge View bundled with the traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony. That's it. It's official. So the question now is... You mean i'm a married woman? You mean i'm finally OFF that blardy shelf? You know, i'm still trying to accept this simple fact that i'm married although i've signed piles of paper in two different countries and then drank lots of wine toasted to the happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Walraven all night long on Feb 11th. And Mrs. Walrrr.. what? Where did that come from.. Oh my God..i married a gweilo!

To tell the honest truth, while i was growing up, i always thought i was going to be Mrs. Low or Mrs Lim, depending on which guy or which Hong Kong film star i was having a fancy on. It never crossed my mind for more than half a second that i was going to end up to be a Mrs. Walraven. And mind you, it took me some time to learn this, but you don't pronounce it as Mrs. Wal-RAY-ven. The right way to say it is no other way but the dutch way, so it's Mrs. Wal-RAH-ven with a bit of dutch intonation which is hard to explain over a blog.

Our wedding party on Feb 11th, i must say, was one hell of an eventful one. To be politically right, i'd say it was an interesting wedding. Let me ask you a question. How many of you have actually went to a wedding where you ate half your meal in a garden and then the other half in a ballroom? Well, for those fortunate enough to attend my wedding, they've seen it, done that. You see, Narrrling and i had great dreams for our wedding. We attempted a beautiful mid-summer night's fairy-tale dream wedding theme at Cyberview Lodge's award winning APEC garden. It was beautiful. We hired special wedding decorators to build gazebos and flower arches decorated with candles and fairy lights, tables were sprinkled with rose petals and mini hearts. The specially hired jazz band and jazz singer was singing love songs hand picked by Narrrling and I. It was to be a night of wine and dine under the candlelight and stars... and suddenly *Boom! Boom! Booomm!*, the sky lighted up for 2 seconds... In unity, all the guests of my wedding dinner looked up into the sky... It was lightning and thunder trying to send us a message... We all looked down from the sky, turned to each other, shrugged and laughed it off nervously.. trying to dismiss it as a false alarm.. Sure, thunder and lightning sometimes just strike for no reason... especially in good weathered nights... and then *BOOM! BOOM! Boooomm!*... we all looked up again.. and *BOOM! BOOM! BOOMMM!*

With a controlled radiant smile, i turned to the banquet manager who was by then, trotting quickly up to me.. Yes, we HAVE to move. My heart fell but there was no choice. I turned to my emcees and my wedding co-ordinator (cum best friend) and gave them a nod. They understood me perfectly well. Each sprang from their seat. The musicians were asked to stop after this song. The emcees got ready to get on stage again. By then, my personal make-up & dressing consultant came to me and said, it's time to go change from my wedding dress to the dinner dress... I held Narrrling's hand, with my personal make up artist holding my skirt, we walked out of the most beautiful garden wedding i've ever seen in my life...

It took us about 15 minutes to change into a different dress, hair and all.. When we walked back, with no hesitation, we walked straight to the ballroom. Thunder and lightning continued in the skies but there was no rain.

When we entered the ballroom, all the guests were seated again, and suprisingly, looked like they've been there the whole night, with most of them getting about their own business again of getting food and mingling about. The only hint that gives away the fact that we've just moved an entire wedding from the garden outside to this ballroom was that the musicians were at the corner of the room, setting up their instruments again and the beautiful flower arches, mist fans, gazebos, fairy lights and candles could not be moved and therefore had to be left in the garden outside to receive the on-coming rain... Ofcourse, since unlike the garden, we did not spend our life savings in having it professionally decorated, what remains of the wedding became a very simple one of mere tables and chairs and food and whatever decorations that came with the Cindai ballroom of the Cyberview Lodge. My heart dropped a moment upon entering the ballroom. But then, Narrrling reminded me that this is our wedding, a celebration of us starting our lives together and has nothing to do with candles and decorations. We should appreciate the meaning of this ocassion and now how the ocassion turned out to be. Narrrling's words sometimes are rather deep i know but at that point, i understood him perfectly well. Hand in hand, we walked on and greeted our guests and spent the rest of the night, laughing and mingling with our guests.

In the course of the night, we had some really meaningful speeches and toasts given by loved ones, we had more music by our musicians, photographs, food and I think a lot of our guests really did enjoy themselves. There were little hiccups like the sound system guys we hired screwing up a couple of times by playing the wrong song while we were cutting the wedding cake or re-starting a video presentation in a middle of a speech but i guess these are only things Narrrling and I would notice because after all, we played it a thousand times in our minds before the wedding on how it would look if it was perfect so small glitches like this seemed more obvious to us. But i think in general, when i spoke to some of my friends who attended our wedding later, they hardly noticed these little trip of mistakes.

It was a night also that i realised some of the good friends that i have around me. Some even made me wonder what i've done for them in this lifetime to deserve having them so dedicatedly working on my wedding. It was a night that yet again proves that my friends are the best anyone can ask for and my family makes me the luckiest girl in the world. It was an eventful and unforgetful night for sure, especially when everytime we look outside, we saw a beautifully decorated but deserted garden, clear skies and the rain never came.

Narrrling says, nevermind, as long as we still have each other.

posted by Miki-C @ 1:52 PM