My friend's wedding, part two

Here is my friend, the bride. It is traditional for brides to wear a red qipao (chee-pow: slim-fitting Chinese style dress) for their weddings, though many modern brides rent a white dress for the day or have a change of several outfits. This bride wore black. I didn't expect to see this.

Most weddings have some kind of comedic ceremony prior to the banquet, but if this wedding had one, I somehow missed it. It was suddenly time to eat.

The entire house was filled with tables, saw horses, and wooden tables covered in thin red plastic table cloths.

The bride and I share a group of friends, but none of them were there at the wedding. This confused me. I sat at a table with total strangers, none of whom spoke a lick of  English. They treated me like an old friend though. One woman was a travel agent. She had her grandson with her. At one point she took a plate of rare and delicious pecans, and asked me if I wanted one. When I said no, I meant "not right now." But when she dumped the entire plate of pecans in her handbag to eat later, I realized that I had missed my chance.

They passed around the thermos of hot water as the dishes kept coming one after another. There were probably 20 dishes total, most of them unrecognizable (and I've been in this country a long time, so you would think I had seen it all by now).

Notice the red plastic on the wall behind the men. The hosts are protecting their white walls from food stains. Notice also that everyone is wearing their thick down coats, because the house was really cold inside. I had dressed for a hotel, not a village, so I was shivering from the cold.

I've sat on saw horses in churches here before. Imagine sitting through a two-hour sermon on one of these things.

I actually recognize this dish, but I've never eaten it before in this form. I grew up in a desert and we didn't have much seafood. When I was older and got around seafood, I already had developed a negative opinion towards it. Who wants to eat that ugly thing?

The groom sat at a table with some other guys who were making him miserable. Apparently it is a sport to humiliate the groom on his wedding day. They are trying to make him drunk, and he has to play along or be considered rude. He looked seriously unhappy all day.

The drinking games are noisy. 

The entryway had beautiful traditional furniture. It also had thin red carpet to keep the floors protected from the guests.

            

Each guest was given a heart-shaped box with little wrapped chocolate candy pieces. I was glad for the calories, because I didn't get enough from the expensive, unfamiliar food on our table.

While they were still bringing dishes to the table, my ride announced that the wedding was over and it was time to go. Fine with me. We walked out of the village home towards the car, and on the way saw two other mansions packed with people and decorated for the wedding. They had used three homes for the wedding party. 

And then, I about fell over in shock when I found out that today was DAY #5 of the wedding! Today had the most people (by a little), but this was the fifth day of wedding banquets. Maybe our group of friends had attended on another day? Is this why there was no lighthearted ceremony? Is this why the bride wore black (she wore different clothes each day, I found out). 

They must have fed over 1000 people in the past five days. I can't imagine even wanting to do something like this unless it was a hunger relief project or something. I've never understood the desire for big weddings. In any country.

I had a wedding gift in my bag, but forgot to give it to the bride before I left. I sent her a message a few days ago telling her I had something to give her. She said she had just returned from a trip to Thailand (honeymoon, I presume). 

Well, there you have it! All weddings are different. I've never been to one quite like this one before, and probably never will again. So glad I saw this one.