yesterday peter and i went(along with the rest of his family) to his sister's wedding banquet. i've been to taiwanese weddings before, but this was the first time i'd seen it from the bride's point of view.

for the first part, we all sat around at peter's mother's house killing time, waiting for the bride to show up. then when she arrived we had to wait for the groom and his family. when they arrived(looking rather serious and stuffy i might add) they sat around while the bride came out and served drinks and snacks to them. then the bride changed into some special jewelry that her in-laws(i think) had brought. the bride and groom prayed to her ancestors, and pictures were taken.

during all of this there were some people who stood out on the back balcony - they are not allowed to see the bride(before the prayers) as they were born in the year of the tiger and it is bad luck for them to see her for some reason.

after this we all headed off to a seafood restaurant for the actual banquet part. at the banquet the guests give red envelopes(hong bao) with cash inside. after the meal they(the guests) are each given a bag(shopping bag size)with different kinds of traditional snacks inside.

the meal was all seafood. i forget how many courses, but i ate almost nothing as i don't like most seafood. i did have a little lobster, and something that peter told me was jelly fish.

about halfway through the meal, the groom and his family got up and left. apparently it's tradition for the groom's family to only stay for half of the bride's banquet.

after they left the bride changed again. she came out wearing a blue dress and a tiara - looking a bit like a princess. she didn't look all that comfortable, but did look beautiful, so maybe that was the point.

after the banquet we went back to peter's mother's house. here they went over the snacks that were left, and packaged them up to deliver to the relatives that didn't attend the banquet. i'm not sure if this was a thank you for coming to the elder brother's wedding(it was a few months ago, but i had to work so didn't attend) or some odd sort of "thank you even though you didn't attend the wedding" for certain relatives.

next weekend we have to go down to tainan for the groom's wedding banquet. but luckily, we only have to go to the actual banquet part, so we'll be free to do what we want during the rest of the time.

after seeing how complicated all this is, i said to peter i'm glad it's not legal for us to get married. if it was legal and we were to get married, i somehow suspect there would be a lot less guests in attendance.