Hello readers! So,we organised our first meet up parents session for both of our parents. Jeremy was telling me how his dad was very excited when he know his son is bringing the gf back home. The next moment, he has been rushing him to settle down, since we have been preparing our wedding, we have to arrange a meeting session for both our parents.
The main objective for the meet up, beside meeting for the first time, was to discuss any special requests that the bride's family may have and some traditional customs to follow. My family is of hokkien dialect and his family is teochew, even though some customs might be the same, but there are still some differences in the wedding customs.
Throughout the whole entire wedding preparation, i have come to acknowledge that communication is very important and communication is not just all talk, you need to listen, listen without any judging before you respond is a very tough skill to acquire. Miscommunication can make thing goes wrong.
My mum is a very reserved person, unlike me, she only speak out the issues she might have at the back and not during the meeting session itself, probably due to culture, but i feel the meeting will usually ended up being an unproductive one. She wanted to request for the 离奶礼金 aka nanny fee(not sure if this is the correct term to translate) basically is to thank the bride parents for raising the daughter up.
Both of our mum are very shy, Jeremy mum first talk to my mum in teochew and my mum couldn't understand a single word of it and my mum didn't try to clarify that she don't understand! I was kinda puzzled and fortunately Jeremy sister ask to speak in chinese instead. I couldn't ask them to speak out because i am not sure what is the traditional customs like. (This has proven to be a very big issue at the later part nearing the wedding, thus i repeat, do not ever overlook meeting sessions with both side parents). All kind of requests will surfaced as the wedding date gets nearer.
Even though both of our parents do not interfere with our wedding preparation and i had full autonomy to plan the entire wedding, no restriction to budget cost. But Jeremy doesn't get himself involved much with the wedding because he is always busy with his work, so 90% of the preparation work lies in me.
Some of the food photos that i managed to take during the dinner as they were discussing,
There were mian xian & dessert yam paste but we were too full and requested for takeaway instead.
It is a good start for a official meet up, but not exactly conducive environment to discuss the wedding request for both family.
So i would recommend for any bride-to-be, if you are coordinating a meet up, either you do it at home or you find a private dining room with low noise levels so that both family can talk openly.
Till then!
