Over 6 months ago, my sister Annie got a call from a long-lost high school friend, whose name is unfortunately the same as mine – Susan. For the sake of not sullying my name further (ie. Lazy Susan, Black-eyed Susan, Hey-Susan-you’re-supposed-to-take-the-wrapper-off-of-the-candy-before-eating-it), I’ll call this Susan “Funzo Kitty“, because as you’ll see, it doesn’t really matter what her name is.
Funzo Kitty was getting married and she and her husband had rounded up all the King’s horses and all the King’s men in three different locations – Taiwan, Toronto and Vancouver – to have three extravaganzas of a fairy tale wedding. Annie was sadly deemed the Maid of Honor, as the more coveted job of shoveling the carriage horses’ manure was already taken.
By fairy tale wedding Funzo Kitty literally meant white-knight-princess-bride-with-four-costume-changes-and-a-special-appearance-by-Snow-White-herself kind of wedding. Here’s one of the many emails from Funzo Kitty to her suckers bridesmaids about the big day (I’ve not edited any part of the email, but have only changed the people’s names):
From: Princess Funzo Kitty
To: Princesses Humpty, Dumpty, Curly, Moe, and Sneezy
DRAFT 5
Pussy-whipped husbandAndy said only 3 games, so short! Let’s keep it within 15 minutes or so…Fairy Tale themed20 minutes (9am-9:20am)
Welcome to Princess Funzo Kitty’s Palace. In order to win Princess Funzo Kitty’s hand, you have to pass these courtship challenges, as proof of your true prince-man-ship. (1)
Q: A prince is RICH. Show me your wealth. A: [Andy hands red envelop].
Judge: If bridesmaids approve, say WE ARE PLEASED. If bridesmaids do not approve, say DISMISSED, and ask him for more. (2)
Q: A prince is HANDSOME. Show me your best smile on camera.
A: [Andy grins for the cameras]
Judge: If the bridesmaids do not approve, say DISMISSED, and ask all groomsmen to make their cheesiest “don’t break my heart” faces.(3)
Q: A prince is CHIVALROUS. Show us chivalry in action, or state it.
A: Judge: Bridesmaid say DISMISSED, and make Andy recite this Oath.OATH
“This is the oath of a Knight of King Arthur’s Round Table and should be for all of us to take to heart. I will develop my life for the greater good. I will place character above riches, and concern for others above personal wealth, I will never boast, but cherish humility instead, I will speak the truth at all times, and forever keep my word, I will defend those who cannot defend themselves, I will honor and respect women, and refute sexism in all its guises, I will uphold justice by being fair to all, I will be faithful in love and loyal in friendship, I will abhor scandals and gossip-neither partake nor delight in them, I will be generous to the poor and to those who need help, I will forgive when asked, that my own mistakes will be forgiven, I will live my life with courtesy and honor from this day forward.”
― King Arthur, Le Morte d’Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table (4)
Q: A prince is also CHARMING. Please recite a love poem in Vietnamese that will make Princess Funzo Kitty swoon.
Judge: Bridesmaid say DISMISSED… they have to act out a love scene from a book / movie.(5)
Q: A prince is STRONG. Please lift all your groomsmen, or piggy back one of them.
A: Andy has to carry 1 or all 3 groomsmen.
Judge: If Andy doesn’t lift all 3 guys, they have to do 19 bur-pees (pushup + a jumping jack)(6)
Q: A prince can SING. Please sing a fairy tale song to woo your princess.
A: [Andy has to sing in chorus with his groomsmen]
Judge: If bridesmaids DISMISSED, all groomsmen must sing soppy cheesy love song loudly.(7)
Q: A prince can DANCE. Please show us your best dance moves.
A: [Andy dances]
Judge: If bridesmaids say DISAPPROVE, make all the groomsmen wear bra, skirts, and they have to dance like monkeys or to a funky song.(8)
Q: A prince is SKILLED. Please dunk this puck into the goal. Score with a puck into a goal net / bucket? or puck will sit on a belt, and have to swing with hip into the bucket?
A: [Andy has to score 3x's]
Judge: If Andy doesn’t score 3x’s straight… they all have to do yoga: downward dog (show picture); tree pose toe stand; and/or 4 group yoga pose. *show picture*(9)
Q: A prince is BRAVE. You must eat all these food as proof that you are ready for sweetness, bitterness, spiciness and sourness in a marriage.
A:
- Green tea ice cream
- Green sour grapes/green apples
- Bitter melon
- Wasabi or spicy seaweed
Groomsmen gets to pick one of the extra plates and eat it as well (sour, bitter or wasabi).
Complete this sentence: I [Andy] knew Princess Funzo Kitty was the love of my life when ________.
As the Maid of Honor, Annie struggled for months to write a wedding speech that would not only honor this wedding abomination, but also reflect her rapidly-souring relationship with Funzo Kitty, who was turning out to be a demanding cheapass with no style nor clothing sense beyond what was available at the Disney and Dollar Stores. While Annie and the other bridesmaids paid for the countless dress fittings to adjust then re-adjust the slippery polyester blend bridesmaid dresses that flattered only lamp posts – Funzo Kitty was sending them scripts for a Disney Princess-styled dance-off and sing-a-long. As Annie searched endlessly for an English tearoom that could accommodate Funzo Kitty’s gluten- and caffeine-intolerance for the bridal shower, Princess Funzo Kitty was livid over the fact that all of the bridesmaids were reluctant to dress up as different Disney princesses, perform a dance routine, and show the world why anti-psychotic drugs are a benefit to society. And even though Annie had paid for the bridesmaid dress, accessories, chipped in for the bridal shower, as well as bought an expensive wedding gift, the bride balked when she was asked to pay for the bridesmaids’ makeup, but agreed at the last minute to hire an makeup artist whose experience, judging by her skills, included preparing Liberace for his farewell funeral performance.
Snow White, Asian style.
Knowing how stressed out Annie was, I offered to write her speech for FREE, provided she would put a hidden camera in her dollar-store tiara to film the wedding, and that I’d have full rights to the video. But in our family only I carry the sarcasm gene in spades, which leaves Annie with the Herculean ability to tolerate immense idiocy like a Mother Teresa Ghandi Baby Jesus after ten Jaegermeister shots. So, here’s the speech I wrote for Annie, yet unused. For exclusive video rights to your special event, I can revise the speech for Bar Mitvahs, bachelorette parties, family reunions, divorce proceedings, and that moment you tell your loved ones you’re legally changing your name to Homer Simpson, because you can really identify with his bacon and doughnut philosophy.
Each tier on the cake represents the number of houses the bride wants to have.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen…
…lend me your beers.
No, seriously, what is this crap we’re drinking, anyway? Tastes like watered-down RC Cola. (Pause for surprised and forced laughter.)
When Funzo Kitty asked me to be her Maid of Honor I was shocked. As the student who was voted “The Control Freak Most Likely to Drive Someone and Then Herself Into a Mental Institution” three years in a row, Funzo Kitty probably wasn’t going to land a husband unless it was through blackmail and/or drugs. As I stand before you on this special day, I see that Andy’s eyes are pretty clear and he’s lucid, so I don’t think he’s on drugs. However, he is twitching his head a lot and was asking my right eyelash – the one that fell into his soup – whether it had any cigarettes. I can assure you all, if I had any cigarettes or narcotics that would make this disaster of a day go by any faster, I’d make it well-known and sell them to you at ten times the street price. (Pause for raucous applause.)
I also want to apologize for my appearance and the fact that I look like the unwanted love child of Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev. As it was explained to me by Trixie, our part-time makeup artist and full-time airhead, the eyebrows frame the face, just as the Eiffel Tower holds up the sky in France. In Trixie’s defense, she did try to draw attention away from my eyebrows by placing a set of fake eyelashes on each eye, each set well-above my natural lash line. However, I shouldn’t complain, since the guys have to wear matching light blue tuxedos. But don’t worry, even though we look like the ‘Lawrence Welk Academy for Disenfranchised Asians’, we won’t break into a chorus of the ‘Tsingtao Beer Barrel Polka’, despite what’s printed on the schedule. I think we’ve all suffered enough. (Pause for enthusiastic whistles and chants of ‘Beer…beer…beer’.)
This momentous day is like a dream I might have if I’d eaten five heads of elephant garlic raw then washed it all down with a bottle of Tabasco sauce. From the leaden thirty-minute re-enactment of Sleeping Beauty (Funzo Kitty) as she reawakens to find her Prince Charming (Andy), to a special appearance by Snow White – who was not a man in drag, despite what the parents of the crying child are claiming – to Funzo Kitty and Andy lip-syncing a Taylor Swift song professing their undying love for each other – it would be hard for us to choose a highlight from the many lowlights of this wedding. However, for me it will be the day when my sister Susan writes a blog post about my experience here and posts pictures I’ve taken of the wedding for everyone to see. Because as we Asians say,
Passive-aggressive aggression may be passive, but it always comes back to bite us in the ass. And that’s why our asses are so damn flat.
Thanks everyone and please remember – In thirty years, when we have hypertension, diabetes, heart disease…our teeth have fallen out, our children hate us because we didn’t breastfeed them enough, and our partners have dumped us for someone with a waistline – you’ll look back on this day and realize that this wedding really wasn’t so bad after all.
