ATTENDING A WEDDING IN TEXAS

Dear Auntie Patti Koh,

This Friday 09 March, we have to leave for Houston, Texas to attend the wedding of my wife niece. It was an anticipated event and all preparations have been made by my wife's family to able make this wedding nice and really a good occassion and a family gatherings and reunion also. So family members from Hawaii and New York and Chicago is flying into Houston the attend the said wedding.

My wife is such in a hurry to return back to Chicago and wants to take the flight out of Dallas Forth Worth on Sunday the 11th to be able return to her work monday 12Mar.

I was telling my wife, if the wedding is Friday and then there will be dancing and stories and family gatherings, it might take the whole night of Friday until the wee hours of Saturday to finish the event and the party, then suddenly -- early in the morning on Saturday we have to take the trip to Dallas Forth Worth. Since we are standby passenger, because I work for the airline, we have to travel to Fallas Forth Worth from Houston via Greyhound on a 7 hours bus ride. The flight from Houston Airport is fully book and the only flights that could be able match what my wife wants is at Dallas Forth Worth.

This is the agony of flying standby and as an airline employee.

We were told to bring our traditional Barong Tagalog, even I know at night it is cold in Texas. We have to wear the traditional, since the groom is a Caucasian. I am bringing my suit also, just in case the temperature there is not for the Barong Tagalog.

And so Auntie Patti Koh, I cannot understand the complexities of wedding and the time and efforts and the many hurdles one has to take care of just to have this wedding or anybody's wedding. I got married with only 55 people in attendance, in a balmy morning of June 26 years ago. It was only appetizers and champagne and non-alcoholic beverages for those who does not drink any alcholhol like me. For me it was a simple and nice even of my life. I decorated the church to be austere on the budget. I bought the flowers from a cut rate flower store, I cooked the appetizers and Hor'deuvres and the cake is not a traditional wedding care. It was a big flat care, covered with all the fruits in season and it was very colorful. We were wearing simple outfits, my wife is in her eyelet cotton white dress and I was wearing my Barong Tagalog.

There were no dancing, as opposed to the traditional weddings that needed some dancing and even alive band to that effect. Those are all money. And I dont want to be extravagant on a one day affair. Yes -- I am very stiff and very frugal. But I can boost that after the wedding I don't owe money to anybody that has been spent on this wedding of mine.

My wedding also is so simple, and so austere, the pictures are not that many. The entire wedding pictures got lost and only one picture survived. This is the only remembrance that we have that we are really married and the even really happened.

We have celebrated two years ago our 25th wedding anniversary and it was the same. There was not funfare, our friend who is a catholic priest celebrated an anniversary mass and then we all ate at the backyard of my sister in law, where our wedding took place many moons ago.

I hope the wedding that we are going to attend evokes the real essence of what it is to be tied and the value of the wedding in inself, not just a circus to please and show off to the guests , friends and family.