You may not of heard, but I attended the Wedding of the Year.  One of my Colleagues got married and I was lucky enough to attend, it was my first Vietnamese Wedding.  So of course a new outfit was required and nails done.  I found a nail salon close to work down one of the alleys so we got them done there, Grace, Trang and I.  Mine cost 65,000 VND which is $3.85.  Need I say more and the flowers were hand painted.

After we had our nails done, we got ready at my place and then took an Uber.

The Wedding started earlier in the day, around 8:30 am and there are ceremonies at the Bride’s and Groom’s houses.  Because the Groom was American, ceremonies/speeches were only held at the Bride’s house.  This is only for family members and close friends so I didn’t attend.

The official part of our weddings is not done in Vietnam and they go to a department of the government and fill in the appropriate paperwork.  I was invited to the reception where the Bride (Loan) and Groom (Shane) are presented to the guests.  At this wedding venue there were three other weddings taking place at the same time.

There would have been about 500 people invited and we were entertained with a traditional Vietnamese dance:

Vietnamese Dance

Gifts are not given for the wedding, money instead in the envelope that the invitation was in.  Therefore, the invitation has your name on it so they know exactly how much you have given.  This is common and the information is used when you are invited to their wedding, you know how much to give.  This took some getting use to.

The Bride and Groom then entered the room and proceeded to light two candles, cut the cake which I understand is fake, and then pour champagne into a champagne tower with dry ice.

The couple then went around the tables and had photos, then we were showered with wonderful food, however, we had to eat very quickly.  During the dinner we had a band who played for people who wanted to sing, basically Karaoke without the screen.  There are a couple of very talented singers within Habitat and one of them is Phuong. Phuoug (right) and her sister:

Singing

After the dessert was served, everyone started leaving.  We got there at about 6:30 am and we left at 9 pm.  There was no dancing, Vietnamese like to sing not dance.

Some photos of the wedding

Now an interesting fact: if a younger man goes out with an older woman, the man is called the pilot and the woman is called the old plane.  Ingenious, better than Cougar.

I wish Loan and Shane all the happiness in the world and thank you so much for letting me share this special night with you both.