The Singapore Wedding: Morning Festivities

I dutifully woke up at dawn, at the strict instructions of my mum, to shower and get dressed, and to participate in some of the traditions my Mum had in mind. Mummy placed two hard-boiled  eggs near the shower, with instructions to "not bite the egg when putting it in the mouth". I was incredulous at the odd tradition, and warned my mum that she would be responsible if I were to choke to death in doing so. Thankfully, nothing untoward occurred, though my mum gave me flak for consuming both eggs.

Mummy: You were only supposed to consume one!

Me: Then why on earth did you give me two?

Mummy: ...

Frankly, I am not sure if my mum understood or believed in any of the traditions herself. 

I laid out the gifts and personalised messages for the bridal party, and basked in the lull before the activities.

At 7 in the morning, the make-up artist, Irene arrived. The photographer and videographer soon arrived too, and there was a flurry of questions. As my hair was being unmercifully tugged and pulled by Irene, I had to field questions from people and was getting increasingly stressed out.

Meanwhile, my bridal party was out in full force to lay out the tasks for the groom. 

First task: Pick Red Beans to Make Art.

Since the majority of the groom party was American, Jish thought it would be challenging for them to use chopsticks to pick out red beans and create art on canvas using glitter glue. I was not part of the fun, though my brother attempted to show me some of the ongoing activities via FaceTime.

After picking at the beans for a while, Peter decided to bribe the girls with a red packet so that they could use a spoon instead of chopsticks.

Behold - the final piece of art.

The second task, again devised by Jish, was for the groom and his party to develop a cheer - American style. By now, my mum was panicking because the first task took up a significant bit of time. The girls hence instituted a shorter deadline for the completion of task #2, but Peter took out a red packet once more to negotiate for more time.

The boys shaking their bon-bons.

The third task involved the consumption of sweet, sour, bitter and spicy flavours. The girls came up with the lethal combination of Oreo cookies, wasabi, lemon and bitter gourd slices.

Nasty.

Peter paid a red packet to get a cup of water to dilute the nastiness of the task, since there were twelve of such cookies to devour - one for each month of the year apparently.

The final task - melting the ice to get the bedroom key. Samantha came by few days earlier to freeze and encase the key to my bedroom key in a heart-shaped ice.

Jish warned Peter against breaking the heart, and said that he should instead melt it. Peter employed the final red packet to negotiate for a cup of warm water, and melted the ice to the key.

With the key, he accomplished his tasks and victoriously retrieved the bride.