Sunday, November 23, 2008

My First Vietnamese Wedding

NOTE: This is two days late because my sister had to be born on November 22nd.

In America last year I went to thirteen weddings (technically twelve in America and one in Italy). You can say I'm a wedding expert. That said, I haven't experience anything like my first Vietnamese wedding. The wedding was for my former student Trang and her fiance/now husband Dzung. Trang is one of my favorite students I've taught. She's frankly hilarious in a half Woody Allen half Rodney Dangerfield way. I was really honored to be invited to her wedding and she seemed extremely happy that I came.

Anyway, I'm sure some of you are asking, "What is a Vietnamese wedding like?" Well, just based on this one experience I wold that the best analogy to describe a Vietnamese wedding is that it is like a sporting event. Here are some similarities:

1. People come dressed in whatever they want. Some people come right after work and wear suits and ties, others just wear jeans, sandals and t-shirts.
2. They have loud ear thumping starting line-up like music to announce the families (okay, we have that in the states too).
3. They have indoor fireworks.
4. They have a jumbo-tron of sorts.
5. People leave whenever they want. Literally there was a mass exodus as soon as the food was gone.
6. Like a game, it lasted about two hours.

Here's some classic video footage: