Wedding of the Century/Parent of the Year

We knew that today would be an adventure! Xiebin, our driver from school, gave us an invitation to his wedding about one week ago. All of the Chinese staff at school have been asking all week long, "Is Maddie coming to the wedding?" Maddie has slowly warmed up to Xiebin over the past year and will greet him when she is in a good mood. She put her party dress on and we headed out to The Pacific Hotel right across from People's Square in downtown Shanghai. The hotel was built in 1928 and was at one point the tallest building in Shanghai. The Chinese have been very busy getting married this year because it has been a "double happiness" year. Today marks the actual end of the Chinese Year so Xiebin and Wei Wei were just getting in under the wire!

This is Maddie's second Chinese wedding - the first one was much... calmer. Xiebin is kind of young, footloose and fancy free so we knew that it would be memorable! As soon as Maddie walked in the door she was the center of attention. There were about 350 people at the wedding and we were the only foreigners invited. Chinese weddings are banquet style where all of the guests sit around circular tables and the wedding "ceremony" occurs around everybody throughout the evening. We knew that we were "special" because we were guided to to the only table that had three place settings of knives and forks. It's tradition for all guests to have a picture taken with the bride and groom. Maddie was in about half of all those photos. People just swooped her up and she was center stage - she really was a great sport about it.

Maddie was so excited to be at a party with familiar Chinese faces around her. When Mr. Ma walked in the door, she literally jumped off my lap and ran across the room to him. He's the other driver for the school and is a dear, dear man. She LOVES him and will go to him even if she's cranky! She sat with Carol a lot of the night and of course, Ruby, Eva, Edith, Sam, and numerous strangers had to have their arms around her at some point. At one point, Carol warned me to keep my camera out because Maddie had just been appointed the resident flower girl. It was interesting how all of the "roles" were assigned right before the ceremony started. The ceremony was supposed to start at 5:18 (an auspicious time), but the role assignments took some time so it actually began around 6:30.

The last time Maddie was a flower girl was for Jess and Chad's wedding. She followed a few other flower girls and ended up stopping in the middle of the aisle to pick up their mess. I was amazed that she actually did it this time. She marched right down the aisle in front of the bride and groom, tossing rose petals along the way. The assigned " firecracker people" were popping off the fireworks, the assigned "confetti people" were throwing colored paper everywhere - and she kept on marching!

After the walk down the aisle, the hotel's MC introduced Xiebin's uncle and he gave his speech and then the MC introduced Andy. Earlier in the evening, Xiebin had personally asked Andy to give a speech and when Andy accepted, Xiebin was down right glowing! Andy spoke in English and Ruby translated. Makes sense to me - 350 people at your wedding and the two people you would want speaking would be your uncle and your employer! After the speeches, the meal began!

Maddie is a shrimp addict, but the entire table looked at her strange when she peeled the shell off the shrimp - it is a good source of calcium ya know! She had her second stare down with a chicken head and all in all, tried almost everything. Wei Wei changed her outfit three times during the wedding. During the second fashion outing, Xiebin and Wei Wei walked around to all of the tables and lit the candle and sparkler in the middle of each table. Our candle didn't have a wick so she took a match and pushed it into the candle to act as a wick. All of the men at the table blew out her lighting candle a few times for a few laughs! During the third fashion show, things got a little wild. Sam had taken an empty plastic bottle of soda that had 6 sides and had convinced Stevie to smoke enough cigarettes to burn 6 holes in it. Sam then put a cigarettes in each hole. When Xiebin and Wei Wei came around to the table for a toast, they made Xiebin light and smoke the 6 cigarettes by breathing through the top of the plastic bottle. Maddie and I were stuck and had a bird's eye view of the whole thing!

So, in the end, it was the most interesting Wedding of the Century and I'm pretty sure that we got Parents of the Year for letting Maddie see some of the things she saw! What an experience!