As promised, we flew out to the land of warmer-than-here for Squid and Mina's wedding. We stayed gratefully but uncomfortably in Bethie and Dave's computer room (why do people persist in renting out half a house without control of the thermostat, I ask you? That would drive me nuts.) and got to hang out and shop and stuff with Melly and Roscoe (and Kristy, who was visiting too). We also ate some fabulous greek food, celebrated Bethie's birthday and I got awesome new shoes.

(I hope that I don't upset anyone in the following description. I want to remember the wedding as was and do not intend to offend.)

The real reason we flew out, though, was for the wedding. Neither of us really knew what to expect from this wedding. Squid and Mina met while she was a student in his ESL class and most of their relationship had grown a province and a half away from us. I barely knew Squid (he is a childhood friend of Paul's) and we had both only met Mina once. Mina had decided that she wanted a "traditional Canadian wedding" (who knows what that means?) and Squid had gotten her some books to help her out with the planning. A baby-sized wrench in the works caused them to jump their wedding forward by three months and increase the disorganization exponentially. As a groomsman, Paul had very little clue what was going on and I had even less.

The first hitch was the rehearsal dinner, which the parents and sister of the groom did not attend, nor did the bride's parents. Since there were now not enough people to fill the reservation and Kristy, Melly and Bethie were dropping me off at the restaurant, suddenly they were invited to the rehearsal dinner. We actually had quite a nice time getting to know the matron of honor (Eungin) and her husband (Gary). Those two were a barrell of laughs, I could see why they were friends with Mina (of the innocent face and wicked sense of humor).

The next morning Paul left early to get ready with the boys while I was picked up later by Jo and G in a rented PT cruiser. The church was just lovely, overlooking the ocean. Once everyone was inside, the music began. What music would accompany the typical wedding? The Wedding March, Ave Maria, and Pachelbel's Cannon, of course. On anyone else the wedding dress would have been garish and tacky, on Mina it was lovely and sweet. The volume of the dress only served to accent her tiny waist and delicate features. I don't know anyone else who could pull off a tiara, veil, gloves and butt-bow, but she did so with ease and grace.



The only hiccough came when it was time to exchange the rings and she hadn't thought about how to get her glove off. (Sadly the groom wore a beige sharpei tie with a white shirt, which no one can pull off. I then made the faux pas of asking Paul if Squid is colorblind. Oops.)








Parts of the ceremony were interesting, different from the typical Catholic wedding, primarily because there were less than 10 Catholics in the entire church. Everytime the congregation gave the 'wrong' response the preists eyebrows would rise sharply and then he would settle himself and go on with the ceremony.



From there we travelled to the reception, which was held in a fancy house at the ocean's edge. The lunch was nothing to talk about but the view was amazing and the speeches were funny or heartfelt and interesting. We were served up insight into how the adorable Korean girl ended up with her handsome Canadian teacher and what made the two of them such a good couple. We heard the story of their first date, from the Japanese girl (in Kimono, below) who went on their first date with them, and (by letter) from the Chinese exchange student who had given Squid pointers in charming the ladies so as to win the heart of fair Mina. Squid gave part of his speech in Korean, addressing Mina's parents who were newly arrived in Canada and had minimal skills in English. Mina's brother kindly translated his father's speech for those of us who didn't speak Korean. Then came the first dance, the Mother-Son dance, the Father-daughter dance and roughly two-and-a-half songs more where people were just starting to mingle when the music was cut off and we had to go outside for the bouquet toss (twice) and the garter toss (also twice).







We travelled to the third location, the very posh condo complex where Mina's parents lived. (On the way we saw a man dressed as a sheep waiting for a streetlight to change and a band playing on the roof of a car dealership.) There the happy couple changed into tradition Korean wedding garb and the real fun began.



There was both music and goodies from both cultures, and wedding cake and games involving kissing the groom and making the bride grab men's bottoms to see if they could identify their mate while blindfolded. There was an apple and basket game, and a one-couple wheelbarrow race. There was possibly more genuine laughter than I have ever heard at a wedding.









All in all it was a fabulous experience. I'm so glad that they were able to bring parts of the bride's culture and so many others into their wedding celebration, rather than having the stereotypical North American wedding. All of their guests were enriched by the experience.