Kilted Groomsmen

You’re the per­fect woman.”

She real­izes this as she writes down my chest, waist, and hip size, then asks rhetor­i­cal­ly, “What are the typ­i­cal­ly ide­al mea­sure­ments?”.

Aaron and I could only look at each oth­er, as we had no idea.

36–26–36.”

Wow, so you’re a real­ly hot chick!”, says Aaron.

Hi-LAR-ious. Years of con­fi­dence I’ve gained, girl­friends con­vinc­ing me that I’m not too skin­ny, gone.

Reduced to a male fan­ta­sy, I’m my own dream girl.

And how much do you weigh?”

(Pause)…113”.

After he’s had a buf­fet”, Aaron adds. My friend the come­di­an. To con­sole me, he says, “It’s okay. Remember, you’ll be paired up with Jenn in the par­ty”.

My coun­ter­part. The tini­est girl I know.

Thumbnail: Aaron's wedding band

In the last few years I’ve been to wed­dings for oth­er friends, but Aaron’s the first out of my core group to get mar­ried (although Pat got engaged before him). To pay trib­ute to his cul­ture, he wants the wed­ding to be a bit Scottish — some­thing his Popa is espe­cial­ly pleased about.

As a grooms­man, I’ll be wear­ing a kilt. As a Chinese guy, I’ll be feel­ing a lit­tle out-of-place.

Thumbnail: Matching the sporran and kilt colours
Thumbnail: Comparing sporrans
Thumbnail: Ghillie Brogues
Thumbnail: Ghillie Brogues

He asked me to give him a hand in shop­ping for the regalia. What a cul­ture shock. Looking through cat­a­logues of claid­heamh, sporrans, Sgian Dubhs, Ghillies Brogues. I can’t even pro­nounce the names. My tongue was­n’t made for these kinds of inflec­tions.

It’ll take you guys longer to get dressed than the bride”.

Before we leave I remem­ber to ask, “Can we go tra­di­tion­al?”, with Aaron adding, “My Popa would be pret­ty upset if we did­n’t”.

Traditional. The euphemism for com­man­do. The euphemism for bear-ass naked.

Don’t wor­ry, every­thing is dry-cleaned”, say the woman reas­sur­ing­ly.

It’s only after we leave that I real­ize every­thing but the shirt is made of wool.

I’ll be scratch­ing my balls through the whole ser­vice.

26 comments

  1. Should be ok, as long as you’re not doing it in the pho­tos ;)

    Hope you’ll be post­ing some pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence of your kilt­ed adven­tures.

  2. @JB — Assuming you don’t know any of the peo­ple get­ting mar­ried, why would you like to be there?

    @Bean — We’ll be tra­di­tion­al in the pho­tos, just not show­ing it off. Although I do have a few upskirt pic­tures planned. So don’t wor­ry, I’ll have as many kilt­ed adven­ture pho­tos as pos­si­ble with me being involved in the wed­ding par­ty.

  3. Hey, great fin­ish to your post. Also a great start to my day! Don’t feel too out of place — con­sid­er­ing how close friends you are with Aaron, I sus­pect you’re in the exact right place. Cheers :)

  4. Being Cameron Scots myself, and hav­ing already writ­ten about the reluc­tance of a Korean hus­band to go any­where NEAR a kilt, I am delight­ed to hear you are doing so. I can’t wait to see you, you’ll look ter­rif­ic, I’m sure. I could digress fur­ther in a way, but I’m zip­ping it for now. While… you’re… not zip­ping it.

  5. I real­ly can’t imag­ine any­thing that sounds more adorable than a Chinese guy in a kilt.

  6. @Nick — Thanks Nick. You’re prob­a­bly right. Ball scratch­ing is uni­ver­sal, whether it’s kilt­ed or not.

    @Xibee — Hahahha…I can’t imag­ine why any­one would­n’t want to try wear­ing some­thing as cool as a kilt. I’m just hop­ing the tooth­picks they call my legs will be able to hold up the hose.

    @ACG — I’ve nev­er actu­al­ly seen a Chinese guy in a kilt, so peo­ple will soon be find­ing out if that’s true.

  7. Jeff, there has got to be one on google image search… and i’m off to find it!

  8. tip — do not google image search “asian kilt” at work. just don’t!

  9. Hhahhahahhhahah…I nev­er even thought about a Google image search, and until your warn­ing, I nev­er real­ized the con­no­ta­tions either.

  10. I’ve been around my fair share of kilts. Been to a few Scottish wed­dings, my mum was in a pipe band and I was a Scottish cadets unit. From all of this, there is one impor­tant thing I’ve learned. Fasten. In any way you can. Anchor down, for seri­ous.

  11. Oh, won­der­ful. No skip­ping on the pic­ture dis­plays !

  12. @Reno — Fasten what? The kilt? Am I sup­posed to anchor the hem down with weights or some­thing?

    @Phaedra — I’ll get as many pho­tos as I can. Unfortunately, they’ll be quite lim­it­ed with my role in the wed­ding par­ty.

    @Xibee — Did you type some­thing in the com­ment? Because it did­n’t come out.

  13. Sorry, I was putting a left arrow and dash­es that point­ed to my name and then said “googling Asian kilt” , but appar­ent­ly it did­n’t print. Did my sym­bol negate the post some­how? Hm. Now the light­ness of it is a lead bal­loon. Damn.

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