My Good Friend's Wedding

Went to a good friend's wedding on Saturday. Shona is one of my oldest and probably dearest friend, and I've known her since primary school. Now, unlike a lot of women I know, I'm not usually one to go all teary-eyed at weddings, but when Shona walked down the aisle with her father, I found myself choking back tears. She looked stunning, and I guess it hit quite hard then that we are onto the next stage of our lives. It was a very nice ceremony - Jimmy, her husband, sang for her in the procession song as she walked down the aisle. It was so good - great voice, lovely song - it was so nice. And the ceremony was short and sweet, followed by photographs, and then a lovely spread for lunch. It was great catching up with our mutual friends from primary and high schools.

The blushing bride walks down the aisle with her dad:


The romantic moment shared between the soon-to-be newlyweds:


Us with them:


The yummy lunch food:


We were invited to the reception dinner later that day held at Grand Palace Restaurant on the Esplanade. It's a Chinese restaurant with a modern style and decor. The food was quite nice, and the presentation was well done (as you would expect it to be for a wedding reception function). This is where we tried sea cucumber for the first time. Here it is served with some sort of giant mushrooms which I assume is one of them not-so-common Asian varieties that have been dried for preservation. Sea cucumber doesn't have much taste to it and quite jelly-like. (Just an aside: honestly, I don't see why it's such a delicacy. It's the same with abalone - I don't understand the hype surrounding this stuff - it's not that tasty and not very nice to eat when it's overcooked.)

It was great catching up with my friend Germaine who flew back from Melbourne for the wedding:

Germ and me


Here are some photos of the food (most of them were portioned out for us in individual servings, and these are the few the waiters left for us to dig in ourselves):

Sea cucumber with giant mushrooms


Roast duck


Dessert plate (Rob loved those sweet potato fritters)


The newlyweds were then subjected to a number of games, one of which involved extracting the hazelnut in the centre of a Ferraro Rocher chocolate using only their mouths. I have lots of photos of that but I don't think I should post any without asking for their permissions.

It was a great day, and a very nice wedding. I was very privileged to join in the wedding celebrations for one of my very good friends.