As of 22 October 2016, Huanyan and Angelina officially got married. In case you are wondering why there was no update for the past 10 months, it’s because we were busy with all the wedding preparation stuff. However, this does not mean that we were too consumed with the wedding preparation that we lost focus of the manner that God was involved in the whole entire process. And this blog post will be one which we testify His manner of intervention through the wedding preparation, from the time we started planning for the wedding, to the time when Huanyan proposed, to the time when we had our engagement party, and to the time when the actual thing took place. As usual, we will take time to testify each other’s side of the story before ending with an overall reflection.
Angelina’s side of the story
I decided I was ready to commit to spending the rest of my life with him because I saw how Huanyan put his heart to preparing the birthday celebration for me – 3 surprises in a row: buffet lunch, a letter and a fun time jumping trampoline, and a promise that this will not be a once-off effort, but just the start of many more to come, even after marriage.
With that we started to source for wedding venues and to commence the more detailed planning of the wedding.
The actual sourcing of venues and various vendors were surprisingly smooth – both Huanyan and I came to a consensus on the various vendors without much disagreement. We had quite a similar opinion on a number of things. Where there were differences, we had a “system” where we differed the decision to the person who either had greater experience in that particular area or the person who was more particular about the area. Thus Huanyan took the lead in deciding all the tech and serviced related stuff like videography, AV, worship, ushering, while I took a lead in the other aspects like photography, deco and design-related like decorations and outfits.
What was surprisingly difficult was trying to understand the expectations of parents. There was a lot of expectations on how things should be done, but little was communicated upfront. Even after repeated asking, the requirements were not stated clearly, but yet conversations on the wedding was peppered with “should”s. For someone who valued certainty and control over the outcome of situations, this was especially unsettling, because I felt that none of the plans we made were fixed because we had to leave room for changes, to address the unsaid expectations. What had made it even more challenging was that the unsaid expectations would only surface when we were close to the execution of the decision. However through all these unsettling times, I observed from Huanyan how things may not be bad as I make, and how it is possible to take remedial action to address these request that surfaced, without having to make extensive changes to existing plans. Thus I am learning from him how to remain more cool-headed when last minute changes arise, instead of entering into a panic mode.
The Journey towards Engagement
The two families, including the grandmas, first met for a dinner in Feb 2016. It was agreed then that we would have an engagement party to formally announce to our families that we will be getting married. That was the first milestone challenge – to figure out what an engagement party entailed and how it should be done. We were also asked to give out cakes to relatives to inform them of the wedding. Even till the day of the engagement party, I still could not fully visualize how the engagement party would be conducted, which once again is very unsettling for me. Luckily Huanyan took the lead that day and hosted everyone that day.
The Journey towards Pre-Wedding Photo-Taking and Concept Video
This was conceptualized and done amidst all the very unsettling time of wedding preparations. But I have to say I had a lot of fun planning out the details of our photoshoot (e.g. locations, outfits, props). This was what I enjoyed the most in the whole wedding process. And I am thankful that our photographer was not very calculative with his time, for a 6 hours package, we ended up shooting close to 8 hours in 7 different locations. Though it was really tiring to wake up at 5am for the makeup and to shoot in the sun, it whole process was really fun and enjoyable because of our photographer and make-up artist who made sure we were tickled and laughing at them most of the time. On top of this, we also got Huanyan’s cousin to shoot for us at COMB, the place that we first got together. Loved the pictures we got! I am thankful that Huanyan agreed that photography would be one of the items that we would spend more on, because it really meant much to me to be able to capture those moments (before I start putting on weight, if I do indeed follow the natural trajectory of most people).
Huanyan’s side of the story
The story took place after November 2015, after I celebrated Angelina’s birthday with a high time of trampoline. That was the point when she felt that she was ready for the proposal. There were a few obstacles when it came to the proposal. Firstly, I made a commitment to speak to her parents before proposing. However, this part of the journey did not turn out easy. More details will be revealed later.
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| Jump to our joy! |
Secondly, there was the question of engagement. Her parents expected an engagement party. For the uninitiated, the Western world today still does an engagement party after proposal to announce to their close friends and family that they are getting married. In the ancient traditions, this is also practiced after the wedding is confirmed to announce to their tribes and clans of the big events. But today in Singapore, the proposal was almost the same as engagement and hence, both myself and Angelina spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what exactly is an engagement and whether that is synonymous with proposal in the minds of my parents-in-law.
Thirdly, the criteria for Angelina to say yes during the proposal was to have a meaningful surprise with a hydrangea bouquet and a nice ring. Getting the bouquet was relatively easier but it's finding the ring that will look nice on her and planning the meaningful surprise.
Thirdly, the criteria for Angelina to say yes during the proposal was to have a meaningful surprise with a hydrangea bouquet and a nice ring. Getting the bouquet was relatively easier but it's finding the ring that will look nice on her and planning the meaningful surprise.
And so the planning began.
The first idea I always had in mind was to do a video, an interview video in fact with many close friends telling the camera why Angelina should marry me. Thus sometime in February and March, I began my route to find the different people to do the video.
The second idea that I had was how to surprise her with the video. After some planning and thinking, as well as playing some "poker" with Angelina, I fixed a date to surprise her. That particular day, I arranged for a nice bouquet and a nice set of helium balloons and I got some of her good friends to ambush her at another friend's place while I set up the proposal venue. She really enjoyed the surprise.
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| The nice bouquet that I got her |
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| The nice ring I got her |
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| Angelina with her balloons and flowers |
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| Proposal success! |
The Journey towards Engagement
And after we had a clearer picture of what the so-called "engagement" is all about. We sat down and started planning. However, this did not mean that we know totally what should be done even though my in-laws kept thinking that I should know what to do. They even asked me "what is the objective of holding this engagement" and I was like "what the heck!"
To cut the long story short, as far as I could understand back then, I knew that the engagement party would be a major milestone in terms of my relationship with my future in-laws, primarily because they saw it as a point where they would be personally involved to ensure that the wedding go ahead and that they stop any "third party" who might come in the way. But honestly, who would be so audacious to do so?
In any case, with Angelina getting more and more stress by the day, I had to soothe her and give her some assurance. But how does one give assurance to someone who needs control and certainty over the outcome when there is none of those in the first place? My secret is this: 硬着头皮, to bite all the bullets and to see how we can compromise.
The result is this.
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| Considered a success, I supposed |
The Journey towards a Better Relationship with the In-Laws
The journey towards a better relationship with my in-laws is a difficult one and this is the main factor that precipitated throughout the major milestones. The obstacles are multi-fold.
Firstly, different backgrounds mean different expectations. I come from a pretty much mid-traditional and mid-liberal kind of Chinese family. My family people are not very much concerned about rites and rituals except the basic ones when it comes to ancestor veneration and in the case of the wedding, giving betrothal gifts to the bridal family. Angelina comes from westernised family background. Her parents were western-educated. However, her dad is what I would call, a westernised man seeking his Chinese roots while not knowing which one is really the root. He expected us to follow traditions but deemed some of the traditions that we proposed as outdated. It was only after a while when I realised that his "traditions" are not the "traditions" we would normally understand.
This brings me to the second obstacle - the obstacle of language and communications. I think God used the experience to train me well in interpreting what other people say. For one, my father-in-law is not someone who uses word simply, in the sense that most normal people would use. For example, he asked me who is the one who is solemnising the wedding. It was only after a while when I realised that what he meant by solemniser is not what you and I would understand. His solemniser is the one who has guided us throughout this relationship. This forms a difficulty as misunderstanding creates bad relationships. It takes a lot of patience on our part to slowly figure out what he wants.
Thirdly, what is being communicated generally has a deeper connotation. What is not said is more important than what is actually said. This applied very much to the journey towards a better relationship with my in-laws. At the end of the day, every party involved wants to feel good about the wedding. This is the same for my in-laws. However, a lot of the communications from my in-laws are communicated across as "our part to take note." If I had been more astute or they have been more forthright, many issues from the beginning could have been avoided.
Lastly, I faced with the many interventions and comments from my in-laws. How would you feel if a normal churchgoer lectures you, a theologian and bible scholar + a veteran in running events and services, on pastoral ministry and how a church wedding should run? Many times, I felt like giving the proverbial middle finger and ask them to shut up. But there is another issue as well - I felt being held hostage by them.
To explain this point, I would like to highlight that I strongly believe that a girl, as long she is not formally married, stands under the headship of her father in the family. It means that I saw myself as having no right to deny what my in-laws wanted because technically speaking, she is still under the headship of her father. This was a principle I wanted to hold on to till the wedding day.
But despite all these difficulties, I think the journey can easily be construed as a testimony on how God guided us. Because of the communication issues between me and my father-in-law, my mother-in-law entered into the picture and played the active role of a bridge to close the communication gap. This was crucial as it not only helped me to understand the communication gap better (since Angelina was no longer at that moment sane enough to be the bridge) but it also helped me to build a better relationship with my mother-in-law. She commented so, that if not for this, she would still be having surface conversations with me.
Also, because of the support of the people around us, the journey was much more bearable and I was able to fulfil most of the requests. So it was God who placed the people around us to support us. This has to be acknowledged.
We have much more stuff to write about but we will leave part 1 at here.
