I attended a wedding last week. Actually, the more accurate epithet would be wedding banquet. The food was good. Lobster salad, fried shrimp balls, shark fin soup, scallops & clams, rock fish, greens, chicken, fried rice. I am probably forgetting something, but it all tasted great. The restaurant is well know for it authentic Hong Kong style food, I am told by reputable sources. Of course, that was the banquet part. The wedding part was a little more complex, as they sometimes say of good wines.

I have been to a number of weddings; as crasher, guest, friend, best man and even groom. I think there can be a certain level of expectation that drives these parties to be somewhat different than most gatherings. Like the roommate of mine who wore a see through, wide knit, fishnet body stocking for a wedding dress. I was not going to complain, she looked nice in it, but I felt she would have been more comfortable in something warmer up on that windy San Francisco hill in Bernal Heights. BTW, that wedding took place in a circle of salt, presided over by a (good) witch, who read something about tree roots.

On the other side of the coin, I went to a wedding many years ago that took place in the same church used in the movie Sideways. It included a full Catholic mass and in the middle of making her vows, the bride had to walk over and kneel before the statue of Mary to prey. I think her parents had a lot to do with all that, as in, it was their money. In truth, on any given weekend this girl was more likely to be preying to the porcelain god than the Christian one.

This latest wedding had its oddities as well. The room was cramped, to the point I was looking around for alternative exits. The event, which was a dinner, was supposed to start at 6pm, but we pretty much chewed on our chopsticks until around eight. At that point a pee-wee Herman looking character started giving a bit of oratory. Interestingly he gave it in three languages (Cantonese - groom, Vietnamese - bride, and English.) Even more interestingly, after finishing the speech, he broke out into a lounge act, wandering the tables with his wireless microphone, singing.

After that *of course* they fired up the power point presentation. I could not really see it that well from my seat, but they made sure to plug the sound system into the laptop and managed to pipe a distinct hum around the room during the entire presentation. Then a few more speeches and introductions of every relative on each side. At this point, in our hunger induced skepticism, we were wondering what motivates a man (like the groom) to wear a white tux, and laying odds that the bride was not just eating for one.

It was all in good fun, of course. Weddings by their serious nature invite comedy, or at least things that I find funny. Like the time a cousin of mine married a dark skinned (not white) surfer on the ocean cliffs (not church.) The relatively conservative parents were quite unhappy about all this and needed just one little straw to bring it to the surface. When the judge (not priest) used the wrong names in the wedding vow section (he was on the wrong page of his book) the mother yelled out "Noooo!", lurched forward and fell to the ground. Or the time two friends who are gay were getting married in Monterey. Dressed in matching tuxes, walking up the bike path to their cliff top, ocean view wedding, a little girl innocently yelled out "Where's the bride?"

One can only smile and say the answer is a little complex, like all good weddings.