Category: Our Wedding in Thailand

Nam left for Thailand today, mostly to get things in line for the wedding. I hate coming home to a cold, empty house, so I’ve put myself to work choosing music for slideshows/videos to be shown during the wedding. I went upstairs and dug out most of my CDs and am now sorting through them – it’s been years since I’ve been through some of these binders and cartons. It’s fun, though. I’m sure it will turn out really well, too. I’m in perfectionist mode, so this might take a while.

Here’s a sample of the photos we went to take in Kobe last month. I got Nam’s permission to post just one; the rest will be kept as a surprise until the wedding. I think they turned out pretty well.

In the following interview, Jennifer Lopez, star of The Wedding Planner (Sony Pictures, 2001), asks Cosmic Buddha about the specifics of his upcoming wedding in Thailand.
J.Lo: Nice to see you again, CB.
CB: Oh HELL YES. This is more like it. That other planning guy was killing me.
J.Lo: Uh… O-K… Well, let’s get down to business, shall we? So far, I’ve only been told that you are holding the wedding in Thailand on February 18th of next year and planning a traditional Thai ceremony at your new house in the morning to be followed by a more traditional reception at a hotel in the evening.
CB: That’s right, Jennifer, basically we have asked our guests to arrive the night before the ceremony to simplify logistics and ensure nobody’s persistently late ass (cough-cough TARO!) fucks things up, you know?
J.Lo: Haha, that’s a good idea – there’s always a few stragglers, aren’t there? And it’s a good idea considering so many of your guests will be coming from overseas…
CB: Yeah, anyway, the deal with the morning ceremony is that, at about 6:00 AM, a group of Buddhist monks come to purify the house and bless our marriage and hopefully not leave tracks from festering feet wounds on our new carpet.
J.Lo: I see.
CB: Since it’s so early in the morning, we may give people the option of coming to this part – the important part starts a bit later, with a parade…
J.Lo: Ah yes, I’d heard something about elephants and monkeys, but I thought it was a joke-
CB: No joke, Jennifer – well, for the first part at least. The deal is, I’m supposed to lead a parade of our guests from a yet-undetermined starting point to the house, where the bride will be waiting. And so I thought, “wouldn’t it be cool if I led the parade on an elephant.”
J.Lo: Very cool!
CB: Then I thought, Nam (my bride) will never allow it. So I asked for more than I really needed, and added that I’d like a troupe of trained monkeys to accompany me on the elephant. To be perfectly honest, I love monkeys and plan one day to conquer the world with an army of them, but I really don’t need the little shit-flingers at my wedding, you know? So when I started getting resistance about the whole this-day-is-about-us-not-a-fucking-petting-zoo thing, I was just like, “yo hon, marriage is all about COMPROMISE, you know?” So I offered to drop the monkey idea in exchange for locking in the elephant plan. And you know what? She was so happy about the simian threat disappearing, she even agreed to let me get MORE elephants. So now I’m thinking three – Jumbo, Dumbo, and Baby Dumbo – all walking single file, snouts holding tails and all that.
J.Lo: SWEET!
CB: Wow, I’m glad you like it… Most of the guys I tell are totally stoked, but the girls either get all silent, or think I’m joking. GIRLS: I AM NOT JOKING. DUMBO IS COMING. WITH FRIENDS.
J.Lo: Well, it sounds like you have a plan, and that’s the most important thing. Oh wait, I’m also supposed to tell you to have fun, but it sounds like you have that one covered…
CB: Ooooh yeah.. Now when we get to the house, there’s a bunch of ceremonies we’re supposed to do that I’m not real clear about. There may be some purification-with-water ritual, or there may not. There may be some ritual where an old couple sleep in our wedding bed, and then we take their places, or there may not. There might even be a ritual where the bride is presented two Siamese cats called maew si sawat for good luck, but who knows? I, personally, am a dog guy-
J.Lo: ALL men are dogs.
CB: Heh. Ever seen a dog ride an elephant?
J.Lo: Heheh.
CB: Anyway, after all the ceremonies are complete, the monks go back to collecting alms from subsistence farmers or whatever, and we have lunch in our yard.
J.Lo: How many guests are we talking about?
CB: We only plan on having our overseas guests, extended family, and close friends over for the morning ceremonies, and we estimate that at somewhere around a hundred people.
J.Lo: Dayyam!
CB: Yeah, Thai weddings are huge. We plan on maybe a couple hundred guests for the evening reception, but apparently in Thailand, people you invite tend to invite other people without asking, so sometimes weddings are twice as big as you planned for…
J.Lo: No shit?
CB: No shit, flygirl. Maybe I’ll just keep some pigs and chickens in cages outside in case we run out of food…
J.Lo: So back to lunch, what are you serving?
CB: Well, considering the setup in the yard, we figure a buffet or food station type setup will be ideal.
J.Lo: I see you have the lingo down already.
CB: Yes, I am a big fan of Modern Bride. The food station idea is particularly attractive because I’d like to have a few special dishes made on the spot – whole roast piglet, pad thai fried noodles, maybe some roast fowl or fish, etc. I am taking the whole avian flu thing into consideration, and will refrain from using poultry if the situation gets worse than it is now. Can’t have a guest come all the way from the states – that’s nearly a 20-hour flight in some cases! – just to catch a contagious disease, now can we? As far as other food goes, I’m thinking fresh papaya salad, some stir fry and deep fried goodies, as well as a spread of various curries to round out the menu. You see, I really feel the need to get the most bang for my buck, and in Thailand this means taking full advantage of cheap, delicious food.
J.Lo: That sounds awesome. A nice change from the standard roast beef and potato salad fare that you usually see at a wedding, anyhow.
CB: Well, you are so invited.
J.Lo: Thank you!
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J.Lo: Now, CB, how do you plan to have your guests move between the hotel to the morning ceremony back to the hotel again? For that matter, how is everyone getting to the hotel in the first place?
CB: We have asked our overseas guests to arrive at Khon Kaen airport by the 17th. Thai Air has three flights a day from Bangkok airport to Khon Kaen, and that information plus booking can be had/done on the Thai Air website. If anybody is unsure about anything, they have instructions to contact us. We will arrange pickup at Khon Khan airport on the 17th, which will convey them to the hotel. The next day, we will arrange for transport between the hotel and our house, possibly using the hotel’s buses, or renting them from Mahasarakham University, where Nam will be teaching from next spring.
J.Lo: Moving on, what have you planned for the evening reception so far?
CB: Well, I was going to ask you some questions about that first. I’m not too familiar with receptions to tell you the truth – I mean, until now, I’ve mostly been there to drink and be merry, you know?
J.Lo: At least you’re honest. Let me tell you something. Your purpose here – your sole purpose – is to make your bride happy. In doing so, you will also be happy. So go ahead and ask me questions, but keep that in mind.
CB: Uh…OK. I wanted to ask you about receiving lines at the reception.
J.Lo: Ah yes, the great debate. Some people think that the tradition of a receiving line is a waste of time, but it depends on your timeline, I think. Give me some background.
CB: Well, we are thinking of another food station setup, maybe with a cocktail hour where everybody mingles to kick things off, you know? Kind of keep things lively and entertaining. I really hate boring weddings!
J.Lo: I know that of which you speak. I think keeping it loose is fine. As long as it’s classy.
CB: Yeah, well I’ll personally toss out anyone who dresses like a whore or Shaft…
J.Lo: That’s not really what I was referring to, but OK. I was referring more to the atmosphere… It’s hard to keep a balance between the stiff traditions and light-hearted fun, you know?
CB: Unless you’re Madonna, right? Then you can just let the fairy gimp pygmies and circus midgets have a drunken orgy in a church knowing it can’t possibly shock anyone anyways, right?
J.Lo: I hate that bitch.
CB: Anyway, the mingling is important. We have guests coming from Japan and the US, maybe a couple from France as well. Old friends, you know – a lot of people I’ve always wanted to introduce to each other, and this is as good an opportunity as any.
J.Lo: At your wedding? Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea how busy you’re gonna be? Forget about making introductions and stuff like that – this is NOT the proper venue. The day before at the hotel, maybe the day after, but not on your wedding day. Jeez!
CB: Oh.
J.Lo: Well look, there’s nothing wrong with a cocktail hour and mingling, just let people do it without you if you have a reception line. With 200 to 300 guests, you will be greeting people for most of that hour, especially if there’s people you haven’t seen in a long time.
CB: I see. What if we did it Japanese style then?
J.Lo: What’s Japanese style?
CB: Instead of a reception line, there’s a departure line.
J.Lo: Hmm… That could work, I guess.
CB: I’ll have to think about that one.
J.Lo: OK. Next item: Music.
CB: In lieu of a band, we’re tring to line up a traditional Thai ensemble to come out from Nam’s university. I’m thinking they can play traditional Thai music as people enter, and there is a talented little girl who has offered to do a Thai Dance performance.
J.Lo: OK.
CB: I’ll augment that by hiring someone to play a music set that I preprogram into digital audio players and provide equipment for. In addition, we are arranging to have background presentations/slideshows of both our history and video/photos from the parade/ceremony earlier in the day.
J.Lo: Wow. You found someone to so this in Thailand?
CB: I believe so. Also, I haven’t made a decision about hiring pro photographers or not. It’s somewhat of a skill issue, I expect pros to be… extremely competent at what they do. You know? At this point, I just don’t think we can find good skill over there, but we’ll see. In the worst case, I should have a couple good cameras and willing photographers among my friends. Maybe someone for video, as well.
J.Lo: I see. Are you going to have a cake?
CB: Yes, I want a cake big enough for 300 people. If this isn’t possible, I’ll settle for Uncle Buck style pancakes!
J.Lo: Will there be dancing?
CB: Undecided. If we don’t take lessons beforehand, there will be no ballroom dancing. Also, I can tell you unequivocally that there will be no Cherry Popping Daddies kind of shit.
J.Lo: LOL
CB: I suppose it would be nice to have dancing, but I just don’t know if we can find a place to take lessons on time.
J.Lo: Just go for it!
CB: Nah, I’d look like a retarded chicken… I’ll have to discuss this with the bride a bit further.
J.Lo: Have you thought about decorations for the venue?
CB: Yes, both the house and the hotel decoration will be flower-centric. I plan on going kind of nuts with the flowers.
J.Lo: Can’t go wrong there. What about other rituals besides the reception line.
CB: Well, of course there will be speeches, and toasts, but I will insist on everyone keeping it concise.
J.Lo: That’s easier said than done.
CB: I’ll figure out a gong system or something. Oh also, regarding other rituals, my sister had basically forbidden us from doing a “dollar dance” or garter toss, as she thinks that shit is tacky. Luckily, I agree.
J.Lo: Really? What’s wrong with the garter toss?
CB: It’s kind of stupid. But mainly, it concentrates all the ugly, desperate chicks into a single area. That’s never a pretty sight.
J.Lo: Oh god, I think I just peed my pants.
CB: Cool.
J.Lo: Anyway, that’s about all the time we have for today. Let me know when you have more of the details ironed out.
CB: K. Peace out.

That was most likely not what Nam had in mind last night when she told me to think about the reception. Try again, Einstein.

Holy shit.
In Thailand, you can apparently rent an elephant for around $30 a day.
I assume I need to feed them a couple hundred pounds of monkeys or whatever they eat a day, as well, but still…
I might just rent one for everybody so we can play bumpercars or something.

So our wedding is set for February 18th, in Nam’s hometown of Mahasarakham, Thailand. We will perform a traditional Thai wedding ceremony in the morning, to be followed by the reception at a nearby hotel in the evening. We are trying to arrange as much as possible by ourselves, because neither Marty Sheen nor Jenny Lopez are available to be my wedding planner, although they say they might drop by for the reception, if schedules permit.
The morning procession consists of me and my entourage (cuz ahma gaaaaangsta) walking in a procession from one end of town to our new house. This is all I know from my limited research on the subject. In my mind, this means being led by monks all a-flutter and playing what I can only imagine as being traditional Thai wedding music, which is nice but kind of not spicy enough for my tastes.
So I proposed some improvements to Nam, including, but not limited to: A procession of elephants joined snout-to-tail with me riding the one in front and wearing a turban and gold armbands and a big Bollywood moustache (syn: mustache). The elephant behind me will be mounted with speaker towers from which will be blasting tunes of my choosing controlled from the crossfader on my pachyderm mixing table. The elephant behind that will be hauling the amplifiers and generators (ah, scratch that I need another beast behind that one to separate the electronics from the power source), and the elephants behind that will be hauling beer coolers. Of course, all the elephant handlers have to be midgets.
To which my beloved bride exclaimed, “I can’t believe we’re married, you freak!”
So I know I’m on the right track…

First of all, and most importantly, I have come to understand that a wedding is for the bride.
Period.
Now, I had heard this sentiment before, but didn’t put much stock in it because, hey, I’m psyched about our wedding, too. The thing is though, like most guys, I’m psyched about a lot of things – trying a new beer, having a good feed, sleeping in on the weekends. I look forward to all of these things and profoundly enjoy every new experience. I’m psyched that I found a used lens for my camera. I’m psyched that I’ve put my car through its last car inspection and I can now theoretically cut the top off and remove the muffler with impunity. I’m especially psyched that I will be living in a new country next year, learning a new language among friendly people. However.
Observing Nam making plans for the wedding has made me realize that I am a total lightweight, a absolute noobie in Everygirl’s Land of Being Psyched. Let me explain.
When I go home from work every day, my living room floor is totally covered with magazines and brochures with names like, “Bride to Be,” “Perfect Wedding,” and, “101 Guest Gift Ideas.” They are splayed out so I can see the writing in the margins and pages marked with Post Its that she wants me to read. Yeah, right. When I fail to comply with her wishes, she takes all of my reading materials out of the bathroom (Aaron Cometbus, Kevin Kim, and car/fishing/computer mags), hides them upstairs, and substitutes them with bridal magazines! Many a potentially pleasurable crapping experience has been ruined by this heresy, I tell you (Vibration lures are hot! Wedding veils are not!).
We sit down and have dinner. Topics of conversation include what we will serve at the wedding party and… well that’s pretty much it. I am a chowhound, not a food snob, and I excel at:
1. Making good food, and
2. Eating good food,
but I pretty much suck about planning what we will be eating on a planned date half a year from now. It is fun to try to keep up with Nam for the first ten minutes or so, but I’m cursed with a short attention span when it comes to this stuff.
For instance, the other day we went shopping with nothing specific in mind, I just wanted to make her happy by taking her where she wanted to go, and she just wanted to look for “ideas or stuff she could use for the wedding.” Guys, between you and me, by the end of the day I just wanted a quiet place to shoot myself. Girls, I know that sounds horrible and selfish, and it probably is, but I’m just not wired that way. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife and will get her anything she wants (I will even buy her the things she at first says she wants then changes her mind about and says “save your money” about but I know she still secretly wants but feels genuinely guilty about, not fake-guilty like a master-of-puppets), and I am very much psyched about being married and our upcoming wedding, it’s just that I AM NOT A GIRL.
And by default, compared to Nam, I am less psyched about, say, the type and color of flowers to be used for table settings. I want something pretty and classy and fresh, but other than that I really don’t care if it’s lilies or roses or even Birds of Paradise. But for girls, this is different. Apparently due to some estrogenous primal instinct, it is natural for them to raise the level of planning and meticulousness to one normally reserved (in a guy’s mind) for say, an amphibious assault on European beaches against numerically superior and better-armed adversaries. Even after professing to be sick of it all, she will browse for hours online looking for the One True Tablecloth Pattern. Me, I just want them to be white linen (OK, maybe I secretly want 3 per table, but still…).
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In the end, this is going to be such a cool wedding party. Nam will love it, I just know it. I just hope everybody knows how much I will never want to see a bridal magazine, ever again.

This is a public service announcement to all gaijin couples thinking of getting married in Japan. If you indeed choose to make this wonderful commitment in the Land of the Rising Sun, be forewarned that you will be asked to write your name on the wedding registration paper more times and in more ways than you can possibly imagine. This is mainly due to corrections made necessary by the confusion caused when two non-Japanese want to perform some official action normally only performed with at least one Japanese counterpart.
Man, we ruffled the system up so badly they wouldn’t even let us get married the day we went in, they insisted on performing a day-long inspection of the documents first. Even after allowing us to get married on the second day, they called us back in because they had made another mistake. Then later that night, they called again announce yet another one – the lady in charge ended up coming by our house on our wedding night to get the papers in order.
All’s well that ends well, right? And we weren’t about to let the small things ruin it for us. It seemed it was all behind us, and all was good. Then today we found out they issued us the wrong wedding certificate (different from what we requested). Here we go again…

A couple hours ago, I sat here a happy man. I sit here again now even happier!
We are married! There is much rejoicing in the streets of Sumoto!
Next, the Wedding. Tentatively planned for next February. We’re thinking of a beach wedding in Thailand, and I, for once, am willing to deal with the yuppie resorts I usually detest… Somehow “wedding” and “private beach” just sound nice together.
And now, we are off to a nice dinner together. Just like we have a thousand times before, but tonight is special. Thanks for all your blessings.