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When the bridegroom comes in the morning, to claim his bride, he is expected to go through various stages of "mental torture". He, of course, does not come without his side-kicks. For this particular wedding, the bridegroom (CK Tan) came with 4 of his side-kicks. In Chinese, they are known as "heng dais".


On the other hand, the bride is expected to be in her room, waiting for the groom. The girls appointed by her, would be the ones to plan for the challenges to be completed before leading the groom's team to the bride. The bride's side-kicks are known as "ji-mui's".

To create an intimidating aura, it was decided that the "ji-mui's" would have colour coordination of white and pink. Well, the information came too late for me, but luckily I was in the right mind to bring a white shirt home for the ocassion. Any other colour code would just mean that I would have to attend the ceremony, naked. The show-down.

Clearly, we were all very nervous/excited and even prepared earlier even before the groom announced that they have arrived. Because this took place in a hotel, we were all crammed up in a small room, and there were about 14 people. Imagine the limitation of space and oxygen content we have then! Briefings were done twice, so that important details were not missed.

While the "ji-muis" were waiting outside at the corridor (and let's not forget that the ventilation was bad, and because everytime there is a lift sound, all of us were anxious..), we were also busy taking pictures of our own. Well, you can't blame us because we seldom have such opportunities to meet in such big crowds.

The face-off between the heng dais and ji muis.
First thing to ask when we see the groom is for the angpow. Money comes above everything, including the wedding, hehe.
Groom had the guts to be cheeky, and asked us, whether we want the big angpow or the small one.
Hello, we were chosen as the jimuis for a reason, of course we would not be dumb to fall for that question! We chose both.

Then, the games begun. Being the considerate 'hosts', we asked them to do warm-ups before the real games begin. 20-push ups each. Well, nothing interesting there though. 20 push-ups meant nothing to men, but we were just being polite for a start.

Comes in the real thing next.

Their team was given 2 apples tied with a string, and to finish them without using their hands.

They were clearly not a smart bunch, because it took them a gazillion seconds later to figure out the right strategy. And that was after a hell lot of licking around the apple, and finally the jimuis took sympathy into them, and told them, that one has to provide support for the other to be able to bite into the apple.

Next, Custom-made sushis, (thanks to MeiLoo), done by the sifus. Inside these babies, there are 8 sushis which are wasabis coated with seaweed and ebikko, 4 sushis with the letters 'L','O','V','E' in them, and 4 sushis which are safe. The groom's team have to deveavour all of these to located the letters before they pass this stage. Well, nothing much, except when the real men begun to tear as they sink their teeth in an entire chunk of wasabi. It felt gross, but seeing the ebikko went to waste; that was heart-wrenching!

After that, we gave them a loaf of Gardenia, and the task of coming out with the phrase, "I less than 3 U MUN", with bread.
That was pretty challenging, considering that they would have to shape the bread into letter cuttings.
Boy, was I impressed with the results after that.

After so much eating, of course, there would be drinking.

4 kinds of drinks, with flavours of "bitterness", "sourish", "hot spicy" and "sweetness". All these have a depth meaning in Chinese, and they believe in going through "bitterhood", "soury" and "spicy", only would one taste "sweetness" in their life, and of course, marriage.

That was the last bit, because time was running out. The coordinator asked the groom to sing their love song, but we were disappointed when the groom told us that he couldn't sing. We pestered further when he uttered a line, "Nobody but chiu..baby....lalala.." something like that, which gave all of us goosebumps. In the end, we opened the door for them, but without before asking them for more angpow. The groom tricked us, saying that he only has one angpow left to which we took his word for that. Anyway.....

Here's to the bride and groom. SeeMun & CK Tan.

p/s: Running late for lunch, so will continue in the next entry. Hehhe!