Well just finished with TC’s wedding this weekend. Sydney weather forecast was 3 days of deluge and it was colder than even London! Go figure!!
It was funny how last time I was on these shores it was for David’s wedding, now it is TC’s turn. I hope no one else going to get marry soon or I will be using up all my annual leave just to fly home to visit friends and the folks. Good to see TC and Sophie are finally settling down. Its been a year and a half since the last time I was here and there are a few things that changed (New railway lines, friend’s lives even my dad’s lifestyle) and there are a few things that never changed. (Well the family home and the traffic for example!) Even more than a year has passed this place still feels like home!
Good to see that all the guys are doing well. (Jim and Richard now driving, Denis building a new house, David and Sue is expecting and Bart now has his own place with a cute daughter.) Not sure what will be in store next time I come back but I am sure it will be good!
The day started with the “Bridal games” in the morning. This is essentially a Chinese traditions for marriage, I am not 100% sure the exact origins of these games but I am guessing this relates back to old days of China where the groom and his party has to travel to the Bride’s village to collect her. Since in those days once a bride left her village she will live with the groom and his family and only coming back to visits, the groom has to proof his love for the bride before he can collect her from her village. Usually the key to these is the red packet that given as fee as dowry to the bride family.
In modern days, these games became less formal and more emphasis on “mocking around” and add a less formal friend times rather than the rest of the day where it is more formal and focus on family and the couple themselves. If you do a “time-movement” study I bet the amount of times you spent with friends and amount spent with family will be at least equal if not more leaning towards friends as you grew older. The weather was terrible for outdoor photos and ceremonies, luckily there are backup plans: We shot most of the shots indoors around Circular Quay and the Queen Victoria Building and moved the wedding ceremony indoor inside Curzon Hall.
Curzon Hall is a chateau in the Northern part Sydney built since 1900, it used to sit on quite a sizeable block of land but since the area around it started filling up with residential houses many of the land are sold off and all that is left is a small lawn area and the main chateau building. I have to say I love the way the Curzon Hall used to be rather than a specialized wedding hall that it is at the moment. It’s a good place to house TC and Sophie’s wedding and the rain largely held out when it comes to doing the photos.
It is interesting to see why some people wanted to do a comedy course for wedding speeches. Denis done a great job MCing the wedding, he introduced people with wit and humour that you will found in comperes for most comedy or variety night. With a few more “gigs” I am sure he can make some money out of Mcing. Mr Lee (Father of the groom) also injected his own humour into the speech with his jokes about growing old and the animal parallels. He captivated the audience during this time and it was definitely a very accomplished feats. Finally the groom himself TC also called back on a joke that Sophie’s dad mentioned in his speech and used it to great effect.
It appears that comedy is an innate talent amongst all of us. Great number of people did comedy course to prepare for best man speech but these courses is only guide us in exploiting what is already there. It never can artificially implant us with a foreign “power” like a radioactive spider can. These guys prepared their speeches in their own voice as an extension of their personality and this not dissimilar to comics exaggerate their persona on stage. What we do as a comic is not that different to normal person afterall!
It was good to see Bhautik and Jacqui came back to Sydney from San Francisco and Adelaide to catchup. Even though it only lasted for a day before everyone has to head home. Now that the weekend of festivity is over we all depart and resume our lives, but not before a week of catching up, relaxing bit of Mountainbiking and a bit of standup comedy.
