Late For My Own Wedding

(PICTURE: One of our pink buses for the wedding.)

Despite waking up at 5AM, I was somehow late for my own wedding. Yes, it's true. The guy whose first post on Ahoy Hanoi was about punctuality was late for his wedding. Well, as bad as that sounds, it wasn't my fault. A few points:

1. Everyone was ready on time for the bus. The bus just wasn't ready for us.
2. The night before the wedding, Huyen had said that we should all show up at 10:30AM rather than 10AM as originally planned. Yes, I'm partly blaming my wife for my tardiness. Technically we were on time for the 10:30AM scheduled start but about fifteen minutes late for the 10AM one.

Right around 10AM, I started to get calls on my phone asking where I/my group of 20+ were. I told them that we were on our way but the calls/texts seemed to be getting more frantic by the minute. Meanwhile, at the same time that we were making our way to the wedding, the bus I hired to pick up all the guests in Hanoi was also on its way. This bus had started at 8AM and was being managed by three of my students who we had designated as bus captains.

When my bus arrived at 10:15, the other bus still hadn't come. Hang came out to our bus and said, "Okay we have to start now." I quickly protested saying that we couldn't begin until the other bus arrived since there were many guests on that bus who wanted to see the wedding including six who had flow in from abroad the day before. Luckily I didn't have to protest too long because the bus pulled up about a minute later. I quickly ran over to the other bus and greeted everyone as they debarked. It was awesome seeing so many of friends and students who I greeted with hugs. Even cooler was seeing my buddy JR and my friend Lily and her family who I hadn't seen in quite a long time. Hugs and welcome words were exchanged before I was nearly yelled at to get inside to the wedding.

So yes, technically I was late for my own wedding.