Pat and Jen’s Wedding

Due to my miss­ing the rehearsal, I did almost every­thing wrong. I faced the wrong way, walked down the wrong aisle, got up at the wrong time, and laughed it all off.

Pat, Mr. Robot, Mr. Logic, had tears of joy in his eyes as Jen walked down the aisle. I could see the emo­tion in his face and eyes, and was simul­ta­ne­ously shocked and touched. I think he got his wish, and dis­cov­ered that he loves Jen more than he realized.

The cer­e­mony was short and sweet, in a grand church with too much echo.

Afterward, we stepped into a limo that chauf­feured us down­town for the pic­tures, on a day that you couldn’t ask for bet­ter weather.

Photos

Wedding party pho­tos were taken in the Courtyard, which is a stone brick patio in the mid­dle of the down­town mar­ket. Then Pat and Jen (with Lin hold­ing her train) went off to take more pic­tures, so the rest of us walked around the mar­ket for the rest of the time.

Reception

There were a few hic­cups through the night — time issues, audio issues — but noth­ing that couldn’t be solved.

It was a good feel­ing to be an MC, mak­ing deci­sions on the fly, mak­ing sure every­thing went smoothly. It was almost as if every bit of my char­ac­ter, every­thing I’ve gained — from my con­fi­dence to my strength — was lead­ing up to this day to make sure every­thing went well. I felt impor­tant, like I could do some­thing for Pat after all the things he’s done for me, and that was the best part.

Dinner was a glut­to­nous Chinese nine-course meal spread out over four hours, the order as follows:

1. Roast duck, roast pork
2. Deep fried crab claws
3. Shark fin soup with Chinese red vine­gar on the side
4. Lobster with gin­ger & onions
5. Salt & pep­per shrimp
6. Steamed sea bass
7. Deep fried chicken
8. Shitake mush­rooms and baby bok choy
9. Yeung Chow fried rice and e-fu noodles

Unfortunately, Jason and I were too busy to eat, but we got a taste of each dish. It worked out when we had room for dessert, which was a gorg­ing of rich sweets.

There were three games; this one had Pat look­ing for pins on Jen’s dress while he was blind­folded. Even Pat’s mom sug­gested putting a pin in a provoca­tive spot, and Pat told us he thought she was try­ing to get them to have kids.

There were also a few unex­pected sur­prises, even though I was involved in the plan­ning of the wed­ding. Countertenor D. Kai Ma sang an opera for us, a capella, in an extremely con­trolled falsetto at the end of the speeches. Also, Pat and Jen did a med­ley for the first dance, start­ing out with a for­mal Latin dance, into robot­ics to Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, then break dancing.

There were a cou­ple breaks in the night where I could sit and relax before run­ning off to get the next part going.

Casino

The wed­ding favors — minia­ture dim sum steam­ers filled with candy — included a five dol­lar gift cer­tifi­cate to the casino that night, so after every­thing was squared away and the guests went their sep­a­rate ways, the wed­ding party went to the casino.

I’ve never gam­bled in my life and offered to give Pat my money, cit­ing my poor luck lately, but he refused to accept it. Katie and I pooled our money together to bet on the horse races, and along with the ones with decent odds, she kept bet­ting on a horse called “A Girl To Remember”. We stopped as soon as we were up, by two dol­lars no less, split the money, and shook hands. Pat proved me wrong.

It was around three when we went home, exhausted from cer­e­monies, pic­tures, and a lack of sleep.

Post-wedding Party

The next day, Pat and Jen had us over for a post-wedding party, a gath­er­ing to fin­ish off the left­overs from the rehearsal. Even more food was brought over, includ­ing fork-roasted bar­be­cue pork, soy sauce chicken, and duck, and I think they ended up with more left­overs than they started with.

Jen wanted Pat to put on the wed­ding dress, which he agreed to do if the eight “kids” would sing on Karaoke Revolution. I don’t think he expected us to call his bluff, because he ran away when the last duet fin­ished singing. When we finally got him in the dress, Jen and Amy had to drag him down­stairs to face the parents.

A Great Group of People

The wed­ding party was a very unique group. I relate to Jen in find­ing it very dif­fi­cult to make friends. We’re both extremely picky peo­ple, and per­haps this is why I got along with hers so well. She describes her friends as gen­er­ous, but what stands out to me is also how polite and friendly they are. You can judge a per­son by their friends, and it’s a per­fect reflec­tion of both Pat and Jen.