What Gotong-Royong?

"Those who want to take pictures can come up to the day-ez"

The host of the dinner who cracked me up by saying dais as day-ez

I absolutely adore it when there are weddings in the family.
It's the one time when you get your aunts, uncles, cousins working together, hand-in-hand, cooking, preparing and all.
We call it "gotong-royong".

And then there's the whole me being an MP as my cousin said.
I also enjoy meeting my relatives (ie: my dad's cousins) and thus my 2nd cousins. I'll usually be the one tugging at my Grandma's blouse and going, "Grandma, who's that?" and she'll probably respond with a "Oh, that's my cousin's daughter or that's my cousin's cousin".
My Grandma, at her age, has an impeccable memory. She enjoys the fact that I like to know the extended family, something my Dad is not that well known for. Hahaha. My Grandma would roll her eyes at things like my Dad forgetting who used to live in the same kampong as them.

Then, there's the whole traditional factor that I look out for especially when I'm on the bride's side. (I've got more girl cousins...Hmm...)
When the groom arrives, he has to take quite a walk with his entourage before he can proceed to sit at the dais with his bride, who by the way should already be seated. Now, along the way, the groom would have to cross certain "obstacles or barriers" usually put up by the bride's side of the family. Usually, my uncle and I would whip out the extra large ladels used for stirring big pots of rice and gravy and place it at the entrance. Oh, we would always have a hoot when it came to this.

Most of that happened during the weddings that have been held previously except for the one we had yesterday.
The gotong-royong part was there but it eventually declined when people started getting with each other. Okay, maybe the majority was angry with ONE person.
And, it did not help that my dad's cousin passed away the morning of the wedding. So, that side of the family couldn't attend. And want to know what sucked? I had just met him the night before during the dinner and had shaken his hand.
And then there was a lack of help. Cousins standing around saying that they've never seen me with a sour face could seriously have changed that had they helped lift a finger. And mind you, they're older than I am!

As expected, the crowd during peak hour was extremely crazy. No walking or sitting space at all. And the shortage of hands meant that some people had to do triple of their required work.

And my Grandma wasn't in the best of moods due to the death and she was busy herself. So, I had to MP and PR by myself while juggling plates.

Did the whole barrier thingy but that wasn't as fun coz the usual suspects didn't really felt keen on joining in.

To sum it up,
one of us was drenched in rose syrup and fruit punch,
the other, a splitting headache
and the other one, wet all over.

I love family weddings.
I hate it when the fun is spoilt!