Tuesday, September 9, 2025
So wedding, one of the biggest events of my life I didn't document yet. I already did the engagement, so naturally, the next step was actually getting married.
I've seen my fair share of wedding prep from peers and stories I've read online. It's usually messy and stressful. I wanted to avoid all that, and the waifu agreed. If it was going to make us stressed, we wanted no part of it. It should be simple, happy and enjoyable. So to avoid all that, might as well just sign the papers right? Yeah, that's what we initially thought of doing. Several of my peers in Malaysia have done just that. Avoided the traditional, expensive wedding where you invited your close friends and family, and were forced to invite all your extended relatives and family friends because they're people you're expected to invite. They just went to sign their ROM at a government institution. Considering the extreme costs of every aspect of a wedding, who can blame them? We thought of doing the same, except it was a bit more confusing because we weren't familiar with the local marriage laws. We genuinely thought just showing up at City Hall and signing papers was it. We needed two witnesses, it was several hundred and the booking process was a complicated mess. Considering that, we looked up who else could legally officiate weddings. Well, I'm in a church with a minister, so I checked with my minister at the time, Rev. Karen Dale, on whether she could do it, as we were unsure. And turns out, she could! Turns out that any officially ordained minister of a religious group could be an officiant, legally wed and send in our marriage license to be legally married. Karen said she'd be happy to marry us, and asked for some specifics and details. We initially planned to just go to Karen's office, have out witnesses there, sign the papers and done! And then she told us since I was a church member, we could use the sanctuary for free, and she would waive her minister's fees. We'd only need to pay the general miscellaneous fee of $200 and an extra bit for the musician, which would be Barry Peters, our organist. In light of that, we thought why not? Cost was the biggest factor as to why we didn't want anything fancy. If the cost was this low, then we thought we could go ahead with a traditional church wedding. Of course, we'd still make an effort to keep costs low, and to reduce the overall stress.
First, late June we tried to get the photography settled. I checked online for a ton of photographers, getting into contact with many of them, discussing rates, hours and all. Lots were very friendly, understanding and engaging, but nearly all of them were way out of budget for us. I understand the value of art. You charge what you think you're worth and the arts have been criminally underpaid for a long time. At the same time I didn't want to bargain and cheap out on them and their talents. Anyway, Onion had also found a few, and we quite liked one of them, Ming Yung, who had done others' wedding photography work at RHUC before. We contacted him, made the deposit and we'd see him on the wedding date after discussing what we'd like, availability and all.
The makeup artist was messier, lol. Also in late June we were considering between some professionals, Sephora freelancers and others, and eventually settled on my ex-colleague Vivian. Part of it was a lot of the reasonable freelancers we contacted weren't free on the date of the wedding, and those who were were charging exorbitant prices. Luckily, Vivian agreed, although surprised. We knew she had decent makeup skills and thought it would be a way to make it easier on everyone. We planned to go to her place for a makeup test in early August. On the same day she notified us that she would be visiting Sri Lanka with her husband, Shane's, side of the family during our wedding. Lmao. Great. She profusely apologized and tried to offer payment to us to get a Sephora staff to do it, but we said no worries. We still went to her place, just to test makeup styles and see what she'd like. The girls did their makeup while I chilled with Shane. We drank a lot of alcohol and I vaped some of his e-cigs. Had some pretty good conversation with him while waiting for the girls. Once they were done, I offered my own opinions on Onion's makeup, which I thought looked pretty nice, if a bit heavy (Vivian's style). Onion continued to look up more potential makeup artists who could help.
The next day, August 5, we went to Exclusively Yours Jewelry, a business by Sako Guldag, who, I mentioned previously, had passed away recently. But in 2023 he was still alive and well, and we went to his store to check out some wedding bands. We wanted good quality bands that would last and wouldn't corrode. Also, for the waifu's tiny fingers, we needed to resize the ring as we never found any rings that fit her without resizing. We wanted something practical but nice, nothing fancy or was full of gems that could get loose. Silver corroded, and we both didn't like the yellow colour of regular gold. After an hour we finally picked out two simple wedding bands, made of white gold. Not crazy thick, not pencil thin. Just a nice thickness that fit our fingers, respectively. Also the ones we picked out didn't have sharp edges, which added to the comfort and snug fit on our fingers. Obviously, Onion's ring needed resizing, while mine didn't, it was a perfect fit from the start. We paid and later collected it on the 19th, admiring our rings and putting them in the ringbox for the wedding.
On August 16th, we met up with the makeup artist, Jennie, that Onion had found via Instagram. Jennie was a freelance makeup artist who had a style Onion liked, and was a reasonable cost. We drove to her place near York University, and I petted her 2 cats (very cute and chonky!). The makeup was really nice, and we were happy with the results. We ate at Fox & Fiddle afterwards and took lots of pictures of her in makeup and soft, low lighting just to show off how pretty Onion was =D.
And of course, the guest list. This was probably the biggest issue. We didn't want to invite everyone under the sun, but we also didn't want to restrict it to only family, which was our initial plan. Plus both of our parents were not in a condition to fly over, not to mention the ridiculous costs, just to come here for a wedding, stay, and go back. We made a very simple and basic guest list, so as to not stress, as we made it pretty much our mantra. If we weren't sure, then no. We ended up with about 30 people, which we felt was just nice as we didn't want to overburden ourselves regarding food and drink later.
Speaking of which, food was another headache. The cost of catering was crazy expensive. We were initially very keen on a grazing platter, but just to account for the food for roughly 30 people was in the several hundreds, either through catering or grazing platters. Plus some had very inflexible schedules you needed to account for. I hope I'm not sounding too entitled, but why would a wedding need to account more for the caterer, than the other way around? Anyway, after debating on what food to bring, we ended up deciding on pastry tarts and fruits, with juice. Keep it simple. Our wedding wasn't meant to be super fancy, and the food was would another bout of stress. Considering we would only have the guests for less than 2 hours, a huge amount of food wasn't necessary. And from my own personal experience, a lot of people don't eat that much, there's always so much left over. We initially planned for a significant number of tarts from Whole Foods, and we even taste-tested the best flavours ourselves. Only to find a week before the wedding that due to some changing things behind the scenes, they would not have our choice of flavours for the week. Seriously? We ended up getting tarts from McEwan's instead. Not as good as our choices at Whole Foods, but still pretty tasty and decent.
Our wedding outfits were much simpler. Seeing how we didn't want to spend several hundreds on outfits we'd probably only wear once, we got them from affordable places. We went to a traditional wedding gown store inside Woodside Square, where there was a very helpful and friendly attendant, and and overbearing boss who kept trying to upsell and pressure us to buy on the spot. The costs ranged from a few hundred to the thousands. Way more than we wanted for a one-day dress that would probably stay hidden for the rest of our lives. We tried on about 3-4, but wanted more time to think through. The assistant was understanding (and she did all the tying up of the gowns), while the boss kept trying to pressure us to buy it on the spot, or pick another dress we could buy right then and there. Onion ended up getting it from Malaysia. One thing was the size. My now-wife is a tiny, petite Asian woman. Most wedding dresses here fit the larger women. She looked up some that could ship here and eventually found one elegant, beautiful dress in white that looked sleek and yet almost casual that would be suitable for the wedding.
For my suit and pants, I got them from Value Village. Yeah, lol. We spent quite a lot of time there and eventually found a suit and pant set that fit me perfectly (only the pants needed a bit of shortening). It was like 60 bucks? Very thick, good quality material. I found a pair of formal shoes that were less than 20. And I already owned a formal, white shirt. So less than $100 for my wedding outfit. Onion found a pair of silver sandals that fit her dress perfectly. For $20. Yeah, you wouldn't be able to tell, seriously.
By the end of August we had pretty much settled everything. We had discussed the details with Karen and the church office admin, Deb. We picked out our vows, got the general outlined and had picked the music for Barry, our church organist. We were flexible with the music during the guest arrivals, having provided Barry the sheet music, but also telling him he would pick whatever he thought was suitable. We chose a piano cover of Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" as our processional, and "To Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X as our recessional. Yes, it's that good. Probably one of the best pieces of music from the entire franchise ever.
And then a week before the wedding, our condo's A/C broke down, just as a massive heat wave was starting. Holy shit, it was bad. It literally felt like suffocating in the unit, and Toshi, who normally liked the warmth, was sluggish and laying on her side on the hardwood floor all day. Even at night, when I came home, it was unbearable. The condo management said it was too late and would be too costly to repair it when summer was ending soon, and told us to just deal with it. Yeah, basically told us to bugger off. Easy for them to say when they weren't burning. We were considering changing venues for the makeup from our place to Jennie's, as we didn't want Onion sweating all the makeup away before the wedding. Lucky for us, a day before the wedding, the weather cooled down significantly, enough to be bearable, and Jennie came over on the morning of the wedding date.
Also, during this time, Onion had been speaking to her friend from Seattle, Amy about coming over to our wedding. They have been online friends for almost 20 years, moving from platform to platform but keeping in contact all this while. They've shared a lot over the years and on a whim, Onion mentioned we were getting married and that if within her means, we'd love for her to attend. We didn't expect her to literally come over! She flew in 2 days before the wedding. We picked her up from the airport, and Onion was the one who met her at the arrivals. They finally met in person for the first time! It was really cool. We drove to a Petite Potato to have a late night dinner, chatting; me getting to know her, and Onion catching up with her longtime friend. The next day, we went for a short hike at Rouge Urban National Park. Onion and I had hiked this trail a year or two ago and really liked it. The fall colours were beautiful and it was a very accessible, easy hike. Amy loves birdwatching and we were hoping to see some birds at the park along our hike. Unfortunately, not much, with maybe a few visible. Still, it was good getting some fresh air and chatting with her. I heard a lot about their prior conversations and how they got to know each other. We went back to our place and played board games! We played Lizard Wizard and Obsession, two games that Amy really wanted to try, and while I don't remember who won, I do recall all of us enjoying the games a lot. We made a ton of jokes during Obsession, inventing scenarios and voicing the pompous British elites, and the activities we were making them do.
The night before the wedding, we needed to prepare our vows to each other. This was probably the only thing that stressed Onion out tremendously, lol. Even though it was relatively simple. I thought about funny and significant things I wanted to promise to Onion, and wrote mine after some thought, while Onion was really stressed and started laughing crazily because she didn't know where to start. How to encompass practically everything you want with a person? What to focus on, emphasize, leave out? Without sounding too sappy or overly serious. I helped her out, giving an outline that she could add on, and she eventually finished it. I would spend the next morning, on the wedding day itself, getting it printed at Staples.
The next morning, I woke up super early to set things up at the church. I was originally going to grab the tarts from McEwan and get to church, but my cousin Chloe offered to get it since it was nearer. She also offered to help me set up in the morning. I got to church around 8 and started arranging the decor in the sanctuary as we had discussed, with our short rehearsal a few weeks back the only sort of practice we did. Onion did the floral decorations of the altar herself, buying fake flowers from Dollarama and Ikea, learning how to best arrange the plants and cover up the metal tray we used as a base. It was honestly really impressive! And lots of church members praised it. We took out some candleholders normally used for Christmas as a decor we were including. Onion and I spent an afternoon a few weeks back scraping away the dripped wax so it looked nicer. Chloe and I put the tarts in the fridge and arranged the tables in the Garden Room, where the "reception" would be after the wedding ceremony. After 2 hours, we were finally done! I had to quickly rush back home to shower and get changed, and also, as mentioned above, get our vows printed from a nearby Staples. Jennie was in the midst of putting on makeup for Onion, and I cleaned myself up before getting changed into the wedding outfit and spiking my hair. Yes. We were discussing whether I should, considering how significant this day was, and Onion said she didn't mind either way, but since it was a trademark of mine, intentionally not spiking it for the big day would be doing it for the sake of the wedding.
Once she was done and I was all good, I drove us to the church, including Toshi, who we bought a cute cat-sized wedding dress for. Frustratingly, it felt like everything was against us getting there on time. First, during this period of time, on the weekends they had narrowed 401 East to a single lane for summer construction, which made it painfully slow. I found that out a few weeks back. It made my 20 minute drive into almost an hour. So I drove up Yonge St instead all the way to Richmond Hill. I hit practically every single red light going up. I'm not exaggerating. Maybe one or two were green when I got there. It was maddening. And then while driving up there, on 3 separate occasions, ambulances with sirens drove past us, requiring me to stop at the side to let them pass. We got to church later than expected due to all this, and our photographer, Ming Yung, was already there and waiting for us. We planned to do about an hour of photoshooting with just us, before the ceremony. It would save us time and money instead of doing it on a separate day. Plus we would be all dolled up. Thank God that Chloe and I had set up everything in the morning. If not, it would be very messy and chaotic. We quickly made sure we were in shape and got to doing the photos. Ming Yung was very professional. He knew how to direct us and do the poses he wanted us to do himself, so we had a frame of reference. The hour passed by very fast and some of the early guest arrivals were started to sit down, watching us pose and get our photos taken around the church sanctuary. Towards the end, we took Toshi out and took several photos with her too! Absolutely adorable. We joked that she was the actual bride. Everyone adored her. Even Barry, while waiting to play music, was enamoured with her and kept petting her.
Once it was almost time and we cleaned up all of Toshi's fur from us, we started prepping and getting to our places. There was a slight bit of panic as Naisaragi, one of our witnesses, was late and came in like 5 minutes before the wedding. Once Karen began speaking to the guests, Barry slowed down on the guest arrival music as I walked up to the altar and Barry played the music. I've never been a fan of being in a spotlight, but for a wedding, you literally can't help it. Everyone was watching me. Then as Barry began playing "Perfect" my cousins Lilian and Chloe walked down the aisle first, as her bridesmaids. And then my fiancee came down. It's hard to describe what I felt at that moment. We had been together for 8 years at that point, gone through a lot of ups and downs together. We had discussed our marriage and engagement for years, and yet as she walked down, I felt very overwhelmed with emotion. I could feel myself choke and was almost on the verge of tears. Very strange! I'm not saying I'm emotionless, but I've never felt this way in any other situation before. Crying during sad movies, during trying times and all that, yeah, sure. But almost tearing up when seeing your soon-to-be wife walking down the aisle was never something I thought I'd do. I thought I'd be more happy and proud, which I was, but not this overwhelmed with emotion. She took her place beside me.
As Karen introduced herself to the guests, she asked us a question of intent, which interestingly, she had to legally do. We said yes. And then she asked the crowd if there was anyone who would object, and naturally, no one said anything. She said that if for some reason anyone objected, she had to verify and find out why, it was more than just tradition. She made a prayer before reading several verses of Scripture on love and union. Then, we were instructed to take our respective candles and light them together in the unity candle, which was something I really wanted to do after seeing it from several Christian weddings I've attended. After which we proceeded with our vows. The very thing that drove Onion mad the previous night. We had them on nicely printed paper, attached to thick cardboard. I'll copy and paste what we wrote, and said to each other:
Howe's:
The last 8 years have been a wonderful time getting to know and grow together with you. Reaching across from the other side of the world, we began as colleagues, to friends, to lovers, to fiancees, and now to be husband and wife.
I look forward to building a life with you in this next stage of our relationship. Whether it's making stupid jokes, squishing Toshi, warming the bed before you sleep, or discussing the merits of board games, I anticipate an eternity of that, and more, with you.
In the presence of God, family and our friends, I, Howe, take you, Onion, to be my wife, to laugh with you in joy, to grieve with you in sorrow, to grow with you in love. Where you go, I will go, and where you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, your history, my history, your future, my future. I trust you to care for our family, and I give you my faith and my love, as long as we both shall live.
Onion's:
Howe, we both know how indecisive I can be but one thing that I know with complete certainty is that you are the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with. I love that beneath your spiky exterior is a warm and gentle heart, beneath your stern expression is a romantic and passionate soul. I love that you make me laugh, challenge me, support me and above all, you accept me unconditionally, showering me with love and tenderness that no one ever has. You are the candle that lights my way and the fire that keeps me warm (literally and figuratively). I can’t promise I can measure up to you but I promise I will love you, as I always have, and always will, even if it means I have to listen to you ramble about theological debates and the concept of free will for the rest of my life.
And here, in the presence of our friends and family, I, Onion pledge to you a life of love and understanding. I shall be with you in sorrow and in joy and will be faithful to you alone as long as we both shall live, and forevermore.
I wrote my vows based on several things. First, we've always found it amusing how despite being on the other side of the world, we came to meet and get together, and I wanted to highlight that, as well as the growing nature of our relationship. I added in a few personal things that we share as things I would like to always do with her. And then I took an adapted version of the Bible verse in Ruth and applied it to her. To share our grief and joys, and wherever she would be, so would I. A shared future with my faith and love. We both actually broke down and cried during this part, lol. When I said I was overwhelmed with emotions as Onion was walking down, I wasn't kidding. But to start choking and crying when reciting my vows was completely unexpected. I was offered tissue to wipe away the tears, lmao, thanks to Chloe. I managed to finish my vows. The same thing happened to Onion. She also began to cry as she said her vows, which made me tear up watching her cry. All a buncha crybabies, lol.
After that we proceeded to present our rings and put them on our fingers. Nothing dropped, thankfully! I'd read of cases there that happened, and we didn't want to join that statistic. The rings fit perfect for each of us, thank you, Sako! Again, with our respective words:
Onion, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love for you, and my commitment to you. Today, tomorrow and all the years to come.
Howe, I give you this ring as a sign of our covenant. With all that I am, and all that I have, I honour you, cherish you and love you for all time.
With the sharing of vows and exchange of rings, Karen then announced us as married, and to kiss the bride! And so we did. I've been to a lot of weddings and the kiss is always one of the more interesting parts. Some are awkward as hell and you can tell they have no experience. Some are really passionate. And most are in between somewhere. Ours was probably what I'd consider in between. We've kissed a lot over the years already.
Then as Barry began playing Joe Hisaishi's "Summer", our witnesses were invited to come up and sign the marriage license. We had my cousin Chloe and Naisaragi, Onion's former colleague to sign the papers. We signed our respective sections and then received a blessing from Karen. She further made a blessing for the guests who had come, and then asked all to stand as she pronounced us husband and wife! We walked off for the recessional as Barry changed the music to Final Fantasy X's "To Zanarkand" and we walked off to the entrance of the church as everyone applauded and cheered. We went all the way to the door before turning around and Karen announced that the reception would be prepared soon after we took photos. We didn't feel it was necessary to have photos with distinct groups, apart from my family, as some were individuals, and we didn't want everyone to be waiting around for their turn, which I've experienced a lot in other weddings. We took one large group photo, which I specifically brought Toshi for, and one smaller with one the family as mentioned. When I put Toshi down on the pew so I could take the photos with the family, everyone remarked how beautiful and well-behaved she was, lol. Then the waifu and I quickly rushed to the Garden Room to begin setting up, while Karen would guide them over there. We opened the fridge, took out the trays of tarts and fruits previously assembled at home and in the morning, and placed them as we had discussed, took out the drink dispensers and filled them up. Tables, chairs and tablecloths were already arranged in the morning with Chloe.
As everyone started to arrive, we offered our guests plates and told then to help themselves. For the most part, it was mostly socializing and chatting with our guests, as well as a few individual photos with those who requested it. I was running around talking to whoever approached us, thanking them for coming, to enjoy the food and conversation, and at times apologizing for needing to speak to another person. Anne Leyton-Brown, a longtime church member commented about how lovely and intimate it was to have everyone comfortably in a smaller room for a reception, unlike the very impersonal large-scale weddings she's attended. Brandon Moore, Nicole Moore and Karen mentioned they needed to head off earlier to attend to Brandon's dad, Brian, as he was hospitalized. I understood of course, and wished him well. Unfortunately, he would pass away a week later. Illia and Claire brought flowers for us, which we kept for a very, very long time at home, and we shared about our respective trips to Banff. Victoria, who actually had a wedding on the same date, managed to squeeze in some time between the matrimony ceremony and the reception afterwards, and lucky us, which happened to be the time she was available. She brought along a friend who complimented and congratulated us, and I thanked them as well. Also of note was Serg and Luna's daughter, Maggie, who Onion and I agreed was amazingly cute and pretty for a toddler. She was left alone at times and she poured her cup to the very brim with juice before holding it above her head and unsteadily waddling back to her parents. Luna, ever the Chinese parent, quickly ran over so the cup wouldn't spill and settled it on the table. Only to have Maggie, now with her hands free, to quickly run and refill another cup to the brim and repeat. It was hilarious! Ming Yung took several photos of us with some guests, and ourselves with Toshi, some of the nicest ones were taken here. We told him he could help himself to the food and drink as he liked, but he was still diligently taking the photos of the reception, lol.
After about 45 minutes, we started to say our goodbye and thanks to the guests who had joined us. We didn't make it a formal thing in some weddings where the bride and groom waited at the door to thank and shake hands with everyone. It was more informal and we just thanked people as they told us they were heading off. As the crowd thinned, we began packing up and storing the leftover food and drink in the fridge, and my family helped us fold the tables and wipe the tablecloths. Whew. Finally, it was over! It was surprisingly exhausting, even though we simplified everything and kept everything to a minimal level of stress. We thanked Ming Yung again for his services and after everything was cleaned up, we headed over to my grandma's place. My grandma was initially supposed to come for the wedding, and we even made sure that she could use the lift for her mobility issues. But a few days before the wedding she said her legs were feeling really bad and she wouldn't be able to make it. Hm, fine. We drove the less than 10 minute drive to her place and did the traditional Chinese tea ceremony to the elders. We first offered joss sticks and offered to the tea to my deceased grandfather, in front of the small altar to him. Then we offered the tea to my grandma, who nagged that we should have changed out of the wedding outfits before offering the tea. Fortunately, everyone told her to not bother with such small matters. I mean, I don't get the vast majority of outdated Chinese traditions, but I'll respect the sensible ones. However not doing the tea ceremony with the wedding outfits was not on my bingo card. We further offered tea to my Uncle Thomas and his wife, Auntie Pui, and then to my Aunt Elkie. All this while, Amy was chilling in the car, as she had social anxiety and didn't want to be in a tight, crowded space for a ceremony that was meant primarily for family. Everyone was okay with her being there, but she said she'd accompany and spend time with Toshi instead. After that was done we chatted a bit and received some trinkets from my grandmother. Then once all was said and done, we proceeded to go back home and drop everything before dinner at Chowon, a Korean BBQ place at Finch. The waifu and I went home and quickly dropped what we could, letting Toshi out of the carrier and changing into regular clothes before rushing off.
Uncle Thomas and family, plus Chloe and Onion and I ate at Chowon. There were again, congratulations given and Uncle Thomas welcoming Onion into the family. Once we got home and showered, we collapsed. Like I said, exhausting! I can't imagine how it is for the multi-day, multi-venue types. Back in Singapore, in 2007 (during a church event) I joked that I would get married in 5 years. 11 years late from that target, but yeah. But we were now officially married! Best part, I'm actually posting this on September 9, the actual date of the wedding. Hard to believe it's already been 2 years.
Chronicled
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