Red Bomb!

I received my first red bomb in Vietnam! hehe...dun panic, its just a red scroll packaged nicely containing an invitation to a wedding dinner. In Singapore, wedding cards are regarded as "red bombs"...mainly becos the cards traditionally are mostly red (duh!) and we have to spend a bomb giving a red packet to the couple to ensure that they do not lose money for each dinner table.

My first thots were.. "oh no another looong boring evening with a hungry stomach while sitting amongst strangers!"But hey, an invite to a wedding held in another country, that I must see!!

The bride is my colleague in the office. I understand from her that it is not that big deal. A week before the wedding and she has not selected what gown she was gg to wear! WHAT?! This is something unheard of in Singapore. We get psychotic if we have not chosen our dresses months ahead of the wedding..then we plan to lose weight, go facials etc etc.hehe..2 days before the wedding, she brings 4 books of her wedding fotos to the office for us to see. Finally the day of the wedding arrived. We arrived at this restaurant that has four split levels.. Wow.. looks pretty grand. About 50 plus tables fill the place...
There is a large stage where a few hired singers were singing on the stage. A little retro I must say...blast to the past..like gg back to our parent's era. But one singer(dressed like Ah Lian) was singing a techno song! hahaha..pretty weird. It was also a tradition for guests of the couple to voluntarily go up the stage and sing a song. Ermmm you can imagine - a free karaoke session complete w horrid dance moves...the poor guests!
We reached our table and each seat has a piece of blue paper with Viet words (of course!)..We checked with some Viet friends and they explained that the bride and bridegroom will mount all the photographs of the event into a website 4 hours later. In the paper stated the website and the username/password..cool!

There were 2 separate large screens in the dining area. One showed the pics of the wedding couple. The other showed the Thai/Vietnam match for Asean Cup! Wah man..there were ppl cheering and all (Viets are known for their extreme interest in football!). So sad...no one was really interested in the poor singers on the stage OR the wedding couple. aiyoh....remember no matter how close you are to your friends, you can NEVER compete with a football match!
Food was served realli fast and I was quite impressed at the design of this steamboat. 1. Firstly the uncooked food is placed at the outer circle 2. Once the the soup has boiled, the uncooked food is swept into the middle circle of soup.
3. Finally the cooked food is brought up again so that you need not "fish" into the soup looking for treasures. When the cooked food are all dished up, we can continue putting raw food in to cook. Efficient huh! No need so many utensils. Here is a pic of Ann(my cuz), me and Tata (my room mate) posing for a pic for our first Viet Wedding.Here is a pic of the wedding couple posing for a table shot. Can imagine how cramp her smile will be...50+ tables leh!!!!

Last Thots:
Vietnamese women are very much like us in Singapore. Many are furthering their studies and ensure that their careers are established before settling down. The age of marriage tends to be in the late 20s and early 30s.
A wedding dinner of 50 plus tables is considered pretty normal for their standards but in Singapore, it would be considered lavish and bloody expensive. AND imagine the number of table photos you must take...a big turn off siah! The wonderful thing is that dinner ended at 9pm sharp regardless of number of tables. It is sooooo different from Singapore where the dinner will prob stretch till almost 11pm!

One thing for sure, it is definitely cheaper to hold a wedding here (abt SGD400 per table) and the gown/foto package is onli a SGD 1000plus. Anyone interested????!!Sure make money one...hahahaha....