Some Wonderful Memories

Jomel is feeling the jitters about her upcoming wedding. And reading about it in her blog, reminded me of my big day not so long ago. I was short of a month from my fortieth birthday when Papa Bkworm and I tied the knot on a sunny Saturday morning.

We had only four months to prepare. From the proposal to the altar. It wasn't the altar, really. BUT we had a great time anyway, feeling both excited and nervous at the same time, standing before the Registrar at the Jabatan Pendaftaran in our full wedding regalia. Not many brides would turn up at the Registration Department wearing a wedding gown complete with flowers and all for a civil ceremony! Talk about being the centre of attention. There were two other couples who went in before us and each couple only went into the room with their two witnesses. We went in with our entourage of ten! And picture this..... two of them who were supposed to videotape and take photos of the signing ceremony were moving about so much trying to get the best shot that the Registrar had to request that pictures should only be taken from behind her because she doesn't want to be photographed! Thank God that she didn't chase all of us out!

The preparation was a far cry from the one that took place twenty years before that. My parents organized everything, right up to the kind of nightie that I would be wearing on my wedding night. It looked more like a pink cotton housecoat with buttons right up to the neck! All I had to do was to wake up on the morning of the wedding, put on my wedding gown and do what the tai kam che' tells me to do for the rest of the day.

Twenty years later, I took charge of the planning. And Papa Bkworm took charge of the finances. We came up with a role sheet, delegated different tasks to our close friends who had volunteered to help out, booked the restaurant, designed the invitations, arranged for the wedding photography and planned the honeymoon together. Amidst the flurry of activity, there was a constant nagging thought at the back of our minds. Would Papa Bkworm's parents relent and come to the wedding?

My in-laws and I get on fine now but it wasn't always like that. Being a parent, I understand their initial objections and disdain for a relationship which they saw as unbalanced and wrong. Their eldest son was going to take an older, single parent as his wife. A woman with a teenage son and a young daughter. Nothing short of a miracle could have turned their animosity to the acceptance and love that his parents and I share today.

They didn't come for the wedding. But Papa Bkworm's siblings were present and I think that almost completed our joy. Jomel's entry 'Striving For Perfection', again made me think of how disappointed I was when Lara couldn't attend the wedding because SARS struck this part of Asia during that period in 2003. Singapore was also quite seriously affected by the epidemic and Lara kept having a fever that wouldn't go away just before the wedding. There was no way she would have made it past the stringent health check at the Immigration checkpoint. Despite this hiccup, we were totally but pleasantly taken aback when one of Papa Bkworm's closest friend flew back from Hong Kong to attend our lunch reception. He was unable to confirm his attendance earlier because Hong Kong was also badly hit by SARS but he turned up in the end, hale and hearty. We were grateful for his presence just as we were overjoyed at the support of friends and family who celebrated together with us that day.

It wasn't perfect. We still cringe thinking about some of the boo-boos that happened despite our best efforts to keep things according to plan. Perhaps there were things we could have done better. I should have done a music video - imagine for a moment, Bkworm doing a version of Shania Twain's Gonna Getcha and dedicating it to Papa Bkworm at the lunch reception! (Haha, maybe I will do a grandma version at our anniversary years from now!) We would have loved a church wedding, complete with a dreamy walk down the aisle as Papa Bkworm awaits at the altar in a white tux but that was not to be. Instead, we had a pastor friend pray a blessing over us at our reception.

The wonderful and warm memories from the time of preparation until we sent off our last guest with hugs and kisses - these shall stay with us for the rest of our lives. And to us, perfection has been achieved.