a wedding

Ray is a buddy friend of mine since college. His first born child, Michael, who actually came to this world 26 years ago the same year we and Ray and his wife moved down to Orange County and whom we practically watched grow from toddler to boy, to a Stanford graduate and then a mature young adult working in Wall Street, New York, was getting married. We were invited to his wedding held in Park City, Utah last month.

As is customary here, the wedding was planned months ahead by the jolly young couple and "sponsored" by the bride's family. The bridegroom side's family and guests basically just need to "show up for the show," so to speak. But Ray and his wife Jenny being such nice people, they booked and paid the hotel rooms for us beforehand, so all we really need to do as guests was to plan and book the airline tickets to Utah months ahead and show up with good will and jolly mood for the occasion.

We arrived in Salt Lake City one day before the wedding, took time for a little tour at the downtown, visiting the Mormon temples and museums, then headed back on the highway to Park City about 45 minutes away.

Park City is a (winter) resort town, famous for its many splendid ski runways, and was the host city of the Winter Olympics Games in 2002. Me and my wife had been here before, but only as occasional tourists. Now we'd stay for the next two nights at one of its more prestigious hotels, St. Regis, to enjoy its beautiful outdoors and scenery, and the grand wedding.

The wedding program actually started the night we arrived, at an old Western bar in downtown Park City. All guests were encouraged to dress up as cowboys and cowgirls, and a hired country & western band played music and taught all how to line-dance, with beers and drinks and desserts and walls flashing with pictures of the bride's and the bridegroom's, etc. We got to meet Michael and his soon-to-be wife, Parilee, at the bar as well. Parilee is a young, (relatively) tiny Caucasian girl we met briefly once in Taipei last year, who looked spritely different tonight. Dressed in white, elegant gown, greeting and embracing every guest with pleasantry and passion, she looked more like a typical, well cultivated middle class American family hostess than the quiet, shy little young woman we met last time. We took turn to take pictures with them and other guests, then chatted, drank, and (I) had quite some delicious chocolate fondu, before heading back to the hotel in the shuttle provided near mid-night.

The next day started with a casual brunch buffet at the hotel. Afterwards, I went for biking in the wild and my wife for shopping at downtown for the afternoon, to each his/her own heart's content. Then we got back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.

The ceremony was held outdoor, in the mountain-canopied garden of the hotel. Luckily the weather was cloudy enough to be cool, yet not too moist for the rain or drizzle to appear. The officiant of the ceremony was interestingly the grandfather of Parilee's, a sagely and humorous gentleman who seemed well versed in world affairs than most American people I know. He said as the first grandchild of their family, Parilee had been outstanding in every aspect since a kid. She earned 5 top awards out of 10 when she graduated from school, with a Taikwando black belt on the side. Naturally they all wanted the best for her, and were intrigued when she picked Michael as her life partner. But then Michael proved to be as brilliant in his own way as she is, and they couldn't be happier for both of them now. Then Parilee's and Michael's best friends spoke in turn at the podium, including one young man reciting a Chinese poem from 詩經 (窈窕淑女,君子好逑), whose well done English translation was printed on the back of the wedding's official program for all to view.

What touched me most, though, was at the end when Michael and Parilee exchanged their vows to each other. You may say they were just love promises from two passionate young man and woman at the consummation of their long term courtship, but I could tell the words came from their hearts and they meant every ounce it carried. "I promise you, Michael, no matter what lies ahead in our life together, our family will always be my first priority," says Parilee, a modern female, raised in a very well-to-do family, graduates from Stanford and Harvard, with a great professional career ahead of her, still subscribing to the good old value of marriage whole-heartedly. Amazing!

The politically correct question for a husband to ask with regards to this picture is: Ignoring the dresses they wear, can you tell which lady in the picture is my wife, and which other is the bride?