Sunday, July 23, 2006

Alvin and Jenny - Part 1 of 3


My younger brother Alvin married his long-time girlfriend Jenny on the 8th of July 2006. They were paktor-ing since Form Six, then university, then working.... then now at last.

Since my loupo and her family members haven't met many of my relatives in West Malaysia, they too came along. We arrived in KLIA past midnight, then woke up early the next morning and drove up to Petaling Jaya for Alvin's wedding.

The wedding was held in Grace Community Center in Section 23, Petaling Jaya. To my surprise, the venue looked more like a church than a community center. We had some trouble finding the place, you know... PJ roads and the traffic and so on.

We arrived early, luckily. Alvin had got an official photographer Kenneth, armed with his dSLR Canon 350D. I shy shy to show my Canon S2IS, so I turned off my photographer mode, sat back and relax. But fingers got itchy, had to take out my S2 later and started to shoot... some crappy photos.

Here's Alvin with his bestman Chiew-Yan (his ol' schoolmate) waiting anxiously for the ceremony to start. And, hey, where's the bride??? Still doing make-up ka? Learn to get used to it man.


Ah, here they are. The wedding march played, and the father brought his daughter to be presented to the groom. Much like the scene in the Garden of Eden, where the heavenly Father brought Eve to Adam (difference was it was a naked event back then).


The wedding started with reading of the scriptures, then some Christian songs. The ceremony pastor, Pastor Stancil gave a sermon on essential elements of a good marriage... Communion, Companionship, Commitment.


Here's the pastor saying 'eii, are you guys serious ah... don't play play hah!'. No la, just joking. There was the exchange of vows, then the exchange of rings.


After that, they had the marriage certificate signing ceremony.


That was followed by the transfering of flames from two candles to one big candle, signifying two persons uniting into one soul. Or two families joined into one big family, depends on how you intepret it. Quite a nice touch.


Then the newly-wed knelt before the altar to receive prayer of blessing from the ceremony pastor. Sorry I didn't manage to catch the you-may-kiss-the-bride photo, but I am sure Kenneth had them.


And here they are, the new Mr and Mrs Hoong. (Mine was done earlier already).


When all was done, there was the photography session, followed by makan-makan upstairs.


When everything was over, my parents went to Alvin's apartment to get some rest. Me and loupo and her family went to Midvalley Megamall to get some exercise.

... to be continued...

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