Chapter 8. Part 4. Lunatic with a Sword, the Loooong Sofa, and Cool Costumes.

My Big Fat Guangdong Wedding

Chapter 8.  Clothes, Photos, Swords, and the World’s Most Unsubtle Spy.

Part 4. Lunatic with a Sword, the Loooong Sofa, and Cool Costumes.

Friday’s wedding photo shoot left us exhausted, but we needed to plod onward.  Since I was already planning on a couple of uniforms for 2 scenes on Saturday, I needed something to go with them.  Even though one can easily buy swords in China and many are made here for export, when I moved I was told that there might be a problem bringing my collection with me.  “Sharp objects intended to slice people into pieces” wasn’t a good way to describe swords on a customs form if I ever intended to see them again.  Mixing them with golf clubs and labeling the container as “sporting goods” resolved the problem.  Amongst my collection are two US military dress sabres with great sentimental value.  One belonged to my grandmother’s brother and one I got from my father.  My father’s is in extremely good condition, but lacks the chain for attaching the scabbard to a sword belt.  The other is a bit rusty, but had the (easily detachable) chain.

So, Saturday morning, I walked out to the street in front of my village carrying a sword and a couple of belts (make loop and adjust – instant sword belt that fits under a uniform).  My taxi driver seemed a little nervous.  I can’t imagine why. 

The order of Saturday’s scenes was partly dictated by my hair.  I was going to wear it down for scenes 3 and 4, then up for 5 and 6.  Scene 7 would take a little more work.

Happily, this time they set aside most of the outfits so I didn’t have to go hunting for the few that would fit me.

Scene 3 was with the roll-down backdrop of a Chinese doorway decorated for New Years.  Originally, we’d been told that photoshopping the words above the doorway to say “Happy Wedding” would be a very simple thing to do.  That morning we were told that such an alteration might not come out too well.  The good news is that most of the writing atop the doorway should be covered by our heads (or so they claimed at the time – real results were . . . mixed).

 

 

My darling’s head wouldn’t have been in the way of the writing, but she didn’t want to look so short next to me, so was standing on a box for most of that scene.  The traditional Chinese outfits came from the wedding studio.  I think I like some of the stuff in my personal collection better.  There was also a small table with a mirror right next to the roll-down backdrop, so we got a few photos there too.

 

 

Scene 4 of the wedding photo shoot was the hardest to convince her to do.  I loved the uniforms.  She wasn’t so sure.  The uniforms even had epaulets, and the lower half of hers was a white wedding dress.  I got hold of some super-stiff hair gel and curled my mustache properly before strapping on a sword.   The metal gates were on the first floor.  Makeup and costumes were on the second.  The outfit was hot, so I ended up hanging out on the slightly cooler first floor, impressing (or frightening) the other clients while waiting for my darling to have her makeup and hair done.

 

 

The lower half of her outfit was enough to hide the box under, so she again got a height boost from standing on a box and added a pair of high heels (and kept almost falling off the box).  Our darling daughter also isn’t too experienced on high heels, so the two of them sometimes looked like they were having a contest to see who could come closest to falling over. 

 

 

Since the background was rather simple, the photographer wasn’t sure what to do after a few shots.  Personally, I was relieved to stop getting the translated “Turn your head.  No, the other way.  Lean forward.  More.  More!  Kiss! Wait, don’t touch lips, just get close.” instructions that had been given in all the other scenes so far.  Me, my darling, our lovely daughter, and a sabre are more than enough of a combination for coming up with many poses. 

 

 

Scene 5 of our wedding photo shoot was the looooong blue sofa.  When I first saw it in other photos during the sales presentation, I assumed there was a normal length sofa and some creative photoshop work was used to stretch it.  Instead, it turned out to be real.  Our beautiful daughter stayed in white.  My darling changed into a short white wedding dress with an insanely long train.  I switched into a slightly less silly uniform.  My plans with the sword belt didn’t work so well with that uniform, so I detached the chain and just carried my sword and scabbard with me.

 

 

There’s one good pic of me kneeling and presenting the sword to my darling.  I was a little worried about how the slipper-shoes will look, since it was impossible for me to get into that position and have the soles of the slippers stay aligned with the bottoms of my feet.  I ended up kneeling with my feet extended back to avoid the problem (but if you look very closely, you can see the “shoes” are really more like slippers).

 

 

I decided I really didn’t want a wedding album without some proper kisses, so repeatedly and pointedly ignored the “Close, but don’t touch!” instructions given by the photographer for all kisses.  There was also a set of airborne bridal dress train photos taken in that scene.

 

 

And of course, there were a few silly pics.  

 

 

Next to the sofa was a fake piano (look closely at the keyboard).

 

 

We did a few more photos there.

 

 

As soon as we were done, one of the wedding studio girls seemed unusually anxious to get me out of my clothing.   Initially, this was a great boost to my ego,  Sadly, the reason for the lovely girl trying to drag me into a changing room and rip my clothes off turned out to be that another client was waiting to wear the uniform. 

Our lovely daughter needed some help getting out of her dress.  The funny thing was seeing this huge while cascade extending out from the dressing room curtain when my darling went in to help our daughter before changing out of her own dress (I’m so sad I didn’t have a camera to catch this).

We then had a lunch break.  Takeout from a different place was nothing to brag about, but at least it was a major improvement on the prior day’s Kung Fu food disaster.

 

 <– Back to Chapter 8, Part 3.          –> Chapter 8. Part 5. The White Bed and Something Darker   –>