Travel with us to a Vietnamese Wedding!

Earlier this year, Anh-Thu Ma married Andrew Hillier. Thu is from Vietnam and Andrew from the UK. They had two ceremonies, the traditional Vietnamese one in the morning, followed by a traditional church ceremony later in the day.Anh-Thu tells us all about it......
 

Ma-Hillier Wedding Celebration

Saturday, March 9th of 2002 will be certainly be over in no time, I have told myself over and over when I woke up that morning, fighting my hardest to crawl out of a deep sleep.

As I got to my parents’ house where the first (traditional Vietnamese Ancestor Worship Wedding Ceremony) of our two weddings in one day took place, surprisingly I found all of my ten bridesmaids and two guestbook attendants all exotically dressed in their elegant traditional Vietnamese Ao- Dai dresses, which my mother had had custom tailored when she was in Vietnam a few months ago.

As I walk past the kitchen and the veranda, there were so many different types of our traditional Vietnamese food scattered throughout the house, it appears!

Food plays a very important and symbolic role within an Asian family. No matter what social status, class or feudal system you are in, good food brings everyone together at some point, coming from a third world country. Although I am as Americanized as any Asian person living in America for over 25 years,  I still find Vietnamese food to be my all-time favorite at the end of the day and I find myself craving for it at most times.

I noticed a lot of dishes made that day were a few of my favorites, but for the first time I was able to control my hunger. Could it be because I had a big day ahead of me and I was as nervous and as excited as my husband-to-be, Andrew? Possibly!

11:00 AM arrived, and I was festooned in the same traditional Ao Dai dress, but red with an ornamental robe over the dress and accompanied by a matching red headpiece that was shaped liked a flying saucer. If you saw these headpieces, you would agree with me that they do look like a flying saucer! The ten groomsmen, two ushers and the groom himself enters the house, each carrying a gift wrapped in red cellophane paper to bring to the in-laws as a dowry, in exchange for the bride’s hand in marriage. As I took a quick glimpse through the corner of my eyes, I saw that my parents’ house was filled with adamant guests from everywhere, ranging from Pennsylvania, California, Texas, throughout Florida, England and even Italy.

Next thing I know, Andrew and I are bowing four times to our  ancestors. The Master of Ceremony made a few speeches and my father with my mother gave a very emotional speech to Andrew and I that  dramatically moved the guests’ sentiment and emotions and brought tears of happiness to most people. He deeply emphasized that, “When the wife and the husband are in harmony, they can empty the vast body of ocean”. Basically, when a married couple is strong together, they can overcome anything, even something as big as the ocean.

My great father, besides being one of the best surgeons or doctors around, was also a Congressman in Vietnam which means giving speeches would usually come naturally for him. But I noticed a little tremble in his speech, not a tremble of mistake but sadness of letting go of his last daughter. I  realized this was the moment that brought tears to my eyes and a few others.

Now pictures are getting taken and guests are slowly but surely making their way towards the tables of food or shall I say that people are trailing their sense of smell to wherever their nose and taste buds are magnetizing them to. What I can vaguely remember seeing on the kitchen counters and tables in the veranda are; goi cuon, cha gio, goi tom, com xoi, che, and many more.

Andrew and I had to follow the photographers around for more pictures and no food yet. As the photo sessions were finally over, guests who were finished eating came up to us for pictures with them or to simply congratulate us.

All of a sudden, it reads 3:00 pm on the clock and back in my mother’s bedroom getting dress again, this time, from my Vietnamese dress, ao dai, into my beautiful white wedding gown, veil and gloves. I’m being rushed as our horse carriages arrived and the groom and his ten groomsmen and two usher men are waiting for our arrival at the church.

My bridesmaids and I rode in a horse carriage from my parents’ house to the church and the twenty-minutes ride was exhilarating, long enough to prepare me for my walk down the church aisle with my Father to greet my future husband. The church ceremony was exactly how I wanted it, sweet but short.

Andrew and I and our maids of honor and best men changed back into our Vietnamese outfits while more guests arrived as everyone was signing in and being seated for the reception dinner, the big feast of the evening.

A couple weeks before the wedding, we met with a very authentic Chinese-Vietnamese catering company to taste and chose ten of the dishes we would serve at our wedding. The ten course dinner included whole red snapper deep-fried served in sweet and sour sauce, lobster, shrimp and much more. As I have mentioned earlier, food plays a very essential role in any Asian festive events as it did in our wedding. I think I was too pre-occupied with greeting guests and families and too overwhelmed with the whole day that I didn’t even get to eat hardly anything. A few weeks after the wedding was over, we had a lot of praise and wonderful compliments about the whole event but mainly people told us that they loved the food, both at my parents’ house for the Vietnamese Ancestor Worship Wedding and at our reception dinner.

I’m just so glad everyone had a good time because that’s what it’s all about!