The Curious Case of My Marriage

At my wedding dinner in Singapore last summer, I was hard pressed by curious (and drunk) relatives and friends to give an account of how my Mongol husband and I met. Well, I had seen it coming, marrying a Mongol man isn't as commonplace as, say, marrying a Malaysian man. In fact, I don't think it was even heard of.

I tried to enlist the help of several privately expressive and dramatic friends to do a comical impersonation of our first chance encounter, but they weren't comfortable with revealing their inner clowns in a public appearance. Not even when I tempt them with a waiver of angpow or their choice of seating arrangement.

I then attempted to enlist the help of my teenage cousins who, since little, were very good at making cute but useless voice-over home videos with their toy Piglet, Tigger and Chansey (a Pokemon nurse who preferred the company of Pooh's friends). Sadly, they were in the blushing years of adolescence and thought this whole lovey-dovey project rather unsuitable for their cool stuffed friends.

My last resort was to write a short piece on the topic and have it printed on invitation cards so that everyone could read it before they come for the dinner, thus sparing us (mainly me) the agony of retelling our love story each time we stop at a table to toast. I even thought of having a quiz session at some point of the dinner to jack up the entertainment factor. However, the idea didn't materialise all the same due to my procrastinating nature. I was thankful for just getting the invitations out in time.

In the end, I didn't have a plan. So there we were, standing high and dry in front of a bunch of overly intoxicated guests who rowdily demanded their angpow money's worth of romantic storytelling. Being somewhat intoxicated myself and eager to go back to my red velvet wedding cake served with raspberry compote, I just grinned widely, promising to give them the story in detail another time before running off to toast the next group of curious well wishers.

Now six months later, I doubt anyone will remember that I owe them a story. I wouldn't be surprised even if they had forgotten whom I am married to. "Wasn't he from Mauritius? Or was it Manhattan? No wait, I think it was Mountbatten lah..."

Still, I shall give it to them, late but finally delivered. Up next, A Short History of The Husband...