Bride Does Not Equal Center of Universe

(Tomorrow is our 3 year anniversary, so coincidentally, here is a wedding-related post)

This past weekend, a co-worker's son became engaged to be married. Naturally there was some talk about weddings.

He mentioned how he knew of a bride who'd bought a $10000 dress. But wait, it was marked down to $4000, so it's okay. Yeah...sure. I said, "That's still ridiculous!" A young female co-worker rebutted how $4000 is not that expensive for a wedding dress these days. I held my position, claiming that it's still ridiculous. That part of the conversation was closed out by her saying that "it's all about keeping the bride happy."

Um. Perhaps I'm just being "insensitive" or buffoon-ish, but becoming a prospective bride does not make a girl into the center of the universe. I will concede that it brings her a little closer to the center of the universe (a little). I think it is entirely selfish for women to magically revert to the maturity level of a 3 year old and rampage on about how this is her wedding and she deserves to have her way. (Or maybe this situation just exposes what she's really like inside) Let's also not forget that there is another person involved in the marriage. What if he would rather spend the money on something else? In this age of the feeble man and dominant she-man, you know what would happen.

Actually, what annoys me is if a bride expects her parents to pay for ridiculous things like a $4000 wedding dress. I mentioned this to Harmony and she agreed that we were not going to destroy our own financial security by paying satanic amounts for one-use items. If Pearl wants a $4000 wedding dress, she will pay for it herself or take out a loan. Hopefully she won't ever want a $4000 wedding dress.

A Modern Korean Wedding

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, my parents were recently in Korea for the wedding of one of my cousins. My dad took a bunch of video footage on their digital camera and transferred it to my computer while they were here. Then I made it into a video, and here it is - a modern Korean wedding.

One of the things I noticed is that even the Western style portion of the ceremony is very different from what we Westerners do. For one thing, in Korea there are dedicated wedding halls. You reserve a portion of time and you better get it done in that portion of time, because the wedding hall is tightly scheduled. I hear that someone else who got married at this same wedding hall that same day only had 30 minutes to get everything done! That's quite a feat, considering that over the course of the whole wedding, the couple-of-the-day wears three different outfits.

People are not seated in pews - they are seated at round tables and where they are seated during the ceremony is where they eat. If you watch the video, you will see this. It gives a very informal feel to the ceremony. There are speeches during the ceremony, no wedding party, and the groom was singing a song as the bride was being walked down the aisle. Of course, there are no laws as to how one can conduct ceremonies in the West, but if you did those sorts of things here, people would notice that something was very very different.

Oaths and Vows

Oaths are not a rare thing in this day and age. Government officials take oaths of office, and many times among children, you will hear phrases like "I swear to God it's true!"

However, it is my personal conviction that oaths are not something that Christians should consider lightly, if even at all. The only reason I give ground regarding oaths is because Paul possibly swears an oath in 2 Corinthians 11:31 and Galatians 1:20. I do not believe that Paul's two instances of swearing give Christians the freedom to go around swearing oaths freely, given other instances where the Bible says not to swear oaths (Matthew 5:33-37 and James 5:12)

I've been thinking about the practice of renewing marriage/wedding vows. If I'm not mistaken, I have known people who renewed their vows after less than 4 years of marriage. I do not claim to know what was going on in their life, but things seemed fine on the outside. Standard Disclaimer applies. As I stated before, I do not believe oaths and vows are something Christians should take lightly. I personally believe it is a frivolous, unnecessary, and possibly unGodly gesture to renew vows when things are going perfectly fine in a marriage. Would we ever renew vows? At this instant in our lives, we are leaning towards "no." I know that we've only been married for a grand total of about two seconds compared to some readers, but we do not take oaths or vows lightly. We meant what we said. This is not to condemn any who have renewed vows; who knows, we might change our minds after 30 years.

All that said, when we have children, we will strongly instruct them that they are never to say things like "I swear to God this/that!" 1) The child is likely swearing a needless oath, and 2) Swearing in God's name is not something to be taken lightly. I also have some problems with corrupt or non-religious government officials swearing on the Bible when taking an oath of office. (Do they have any idea of the gravity of what they are really doing??) If they are not going to uphold Christian virtues and not going to conform to Christ's image while in office, they should not swear on the Word of God. That, too, is what I believe to be a frivolous swearing of oath.

Blast from the Past: Wedding Songs

We were officially engaged one year ago today. Then we sort of went to hell and back. Anyways, in honor of that, here's this post.

I was looking around on my website the other day, and found this list of songs that we wanted somewhere in our wedding. You'll notice that you see NO instances of Canon in D, Jesu Joy of a Man's Desire, or Trumpet Voluntary. While those songs can be rather pleasant otherwise, we did not want those songs in our wedding. Too.......pedestrian for us.

Looking back, I don't think many of these songs actually survived the final cut, especially the pre-ceremony hymns, which was unfortunate. The songs used during the reception aren't even on this list anywhere.

May we also add that we are glad that all of this is behind us!
Before ceremony (Piano hymns)

Amazing Grace
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
The Lord's My Shepherd, sheet music
God Moves in a Mysterious Way, sheet music
Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken, sheet music
How Sweet, How Heavenly, sheet music
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, sheet music
How Great Thou Art
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
This is My Father's World, sheet music
Nearer, Still Nearer
Purer in Heart, sheet music
O Sacred Head, sheet music
I Know Whom I Have Believed, sheet music
I Need Thee Every Hour, sheet music
Have Thine Own Way
Holy, Holy, Holy
Hallelujah! What a Savior!
Fairest Lord Jesus, sheet music
Be Still, My Soul
Just As I Am
The Lord Bless You and Keep You
Abide with Me
Glory Be to Jesus, sheet music (great song, not in many song books, relatively easy to play)
Be Thou My Vision, sheet music (not my most favorite arrangement), click here to listen (that link will work, it's from my own website)

During Ceremony (from CD)
Seating of grandparents/parents - My Darling Asleep, arr. Turlough O'Carolan
Entrance of groom/groomsmen - Cello Suite 1: Prelude, Bach
Processional - Concerto Grosso Op6. No.12: Larghetto e piano, Handel
Bride - Carmen: Intermezzo, Bizet
Recessional: Hail to the Brightness of Zion's Glad Morning Miscellaneous (this one was actually survived, but was played on piano, accompanied by live trumpet)

Random other songs:
Handel - Concerto grosso, Op 6 No 11 Andante
Handel - Concerto grosso, Op 6 No 12 Larghetto e piano
Handel - Sonata, Op1 No 3 Allegro
Handel - Sonata, Op 1 No 12 Allegro
Handel - Sonata, Op1 No 13 Affettuoso (Suzuki)
Handel - Sonata, Op 1 No 14 Adagio
Bach - Oboe Violin Double Second Movement
Bach - Loure from Partita No 3
Debussy - Claire de Lune (piano or orchestral)
Mascagni - Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
Camille Saint-Saëns - Le Cygne
Beethoven - Minuet in G
Elgar - Salut d’amour Op12
Mozart - String Quartet in C maj “Dissonance” Andante cantible
Liz Knowles - My Darling Asleep
Bach - Cello Suite 1 Prelude
Vivaldi - L’inverno Largo
Bizet - Carmon Intermezzo

Wedding Pictures

We bought the rights to these pictures, so it's totally legal to put them up here.

For a few more pictures, go to my website here.

The Aftermath

Finally...the wedding has come and gone. SO nice to have all that stress off our backs. We got back from the secluded log cabin honeymoon today at about 12:30. The drive home only took 2 hours.

It's nice not to have people breathing down your throat about the little wedding details and such.

It's nice not to have to drive out to Harmony's parents' house every week. It's an hour away (~100 mile roundtrip).

It's nice to have her quietly working on a puzzle behind me, whilst a fire crackles away in the fireplace.

It's nice to be able to finally call her my "wife."

It's nice to have in-house meal preparation, 24/7 ;)

It's nice to have broadband internet again!!! The secluded log cabin (which was VERY nice otherwise) only had dial-up, and a really old computer which seemed to depend entirely on virtual memory.

Here are some pictures of us in the backyard of the log cabin in which we stayed. I took the pictures with the help of the tripod. A couple more pictures available at my website.

Time Capsule to be Opened Circa 2025

Dear Future JunkMale and JunkFemale,

This is JunkMale writing when he is 23 years old, about to get married to the fair JunkFemale. Inevitably, you will have multiplied by now. Multiple times if the Lord is good to you. If you're lucky, the ungodly and barbaric practice of abortion will have been banned by now. But that's a whole different topic. Anyways...perhaps around this time, give a few years or so, you might be faced with marrying off one of your children. If that situation is indeed here, I hope both of you remember all the stress that you were put under as an engaged couple, in order to have the wedding that neither of you wanted. Neither of us wanted a big hoedown for a wedding; we would've been fine with just nuclear family, grandparents, and minister. But somehow through the unseen forces of parents + in-laws, this is a much bigger hoedown than we wanted.

If you are JunkFemale, please REMEMBER the stress you were under, as you sought to deal with this huge ordeal. Please remember that you yourself did not want to go through that, and please do not make your future sons and daughters go through that, if they do not wish.

If the reader is the JunkMale, the funder of Weddings Future, please remember this great tidbit of advice from JunkMale, recipient of Weddings Past: just throw funding money at your lovebirds and let them do what they want.

This is not to say that all involved parents have been "bad." The fault lies more with the vocal minority, who (singular or plural, you decide) shall not be named at this point. If you, as one of four parents involved, should find yourself being vocal sans prompting, please realize that fewer gray hairs will result if you would *kindly* pipe down.

Here are some fortune cookie tidbits. Verily I say unto thee:

• Give input in the form of mere suggestions, maybe once. And then ONLY give input when requested.
• Three is a crowd; do not wish to invite 400 people to the wedding and think this is "not that many people." Especially when all these 400 people are not friends of your child and his/her betrothed.
• It is not wise to balk if your children wish to keep their weddings under 30 people.
• It is not wise to balk if the groom's family wishes to help fund portions.
• It is not wise to balk if the bride's family does not wish to spend a fortune on the wedding.
• Bible verse for previous tidbits: Ecclesiastes 10:9 states "A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes life merry, but money is the answer for everything."
• You are not the one marrying the kid; therefore, do not make the said child do hair or makeup in a way that is completely opposite of the feelings of said child's future spouse.
• Planning an out-of-town wedding without an out-of-town wedding planner is a forehead-smacking blunder comparable to invading Russia during winter time, or voting for Hillary.
• Have many children, for children are a blessing from God. If you mess up on one wedding, fix it with the next kid in line.
• S*xual dimorphism reverses when weddings come calling; approach mothers only when necessary, grab by the horns, and beware of the razor-sharp teeth which drip with necrotizing venom more potent than conotoxin.
• The best way to handle being a parent of a bride/groom is to dump money in the betrothed's bank account, then enter cryogenic hibernation for the length of the engagement and show up on the day of the wedding.

It would be both fortunate and unfortunate if we forgot the homestretch of months approaching December 16, 2006. It's obvious why it would be fortunate, but it would be unfortunate because those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Wedding Portraits

This past weekend we were in Charlotte to take wedding portraits. Yeah, whatever, we broke tradition and I saw her in her full wedding dress. We're only traditional in some circumstances. For any new readers, no, we are not married yet. December 16 fast approaches...




This last one is making fun of traditional Korean wedding pictures, where people don't smile. For comparison purposes, below that is a picture of my parents in a similar get-up.