We feel safe and secure in the knowledge that our friends love us and would not give us tacky gifts or ang pows ever. This was simply, a lunch, an intimate gathering of friends in our honor. Faced with the (to them!) uncomfortable prospect of coming empty-handed, the friends were undaunted. They got down to the basics. Some came with flowers (clever!) and many presented us with cards.And write, they did. They penned poems and long lines of non-standard congratulatory wishes. The writing was beautiful. These friends could all write so well. It was awesome. I smiled a secret smile because none of them simply used the word 'congratulations'; the same way as I never once used the word 'marriage/married' in my emails/invites. They probably flipped out the thesaurus and combed through them to get the best words. Heh.
The man and I spent so much time reading and re-reading each line in each card. These cards mean more to us than any ang pow. Money, we emphasize, doesn't impress us. There is no need to add to our coffers. Even if we had thrown this giant-ass fancy dinner for 1000 guests, we'd still put our feet down to print a line to say "no ang pows necessary and no ducks/geese or sharks in any form will be served for dinner."
We are, however, extremely touched and impressed by the gift certificates that accompanied the cards, say, to Kiva, Oxfam, TisBest, Singapore Red Cross and Tabung Bencana NSTP Media Prima, and et cætera. The friends have also offerred their time and effort to be charity slaves, leaving it up to me to roster duties. Wieeeeeeeee!
I leave you with an extract from a wedding poem somebody wrote:-
Ora Et Labora-Alchemical Dictum
"Take these ancient rites and boil them down,
Distill this day to its purest essence -
You dissolve yourselves
and transmute into a stronger whole.
Not every disintegration is a surrender.
Break down all the elements of love,
To these add an equal measure of belief
And watch them
transform into a union of equals."
