Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Making of the Lubangs

I just got married!

We had a crazy 3 weeks, starting with my graduation. You'd think this would be a bigger deal since I spent 9 years trying to get this diploma, but it got a bit eclipsed with the wedding. But it was still a good time - my parents came into town, as did Pete's mom. We had a nice dinner that night, and the next night, my parents through a big banquet dinner for me and my friends. It was so nice of everyone to come!

That next week we spent getting ready for our wedding, which takes way more time than you might think. I can't even remember what I was doing anymore, but every day was super busy doing super important wedding stuff. Plus we were picking people up from train stations and airports and my brother his girlfriend, and my sister and her boyfriend were staying with us.


The wedding itself was so much fun for us! We started with photos to get them out of the way, and then it was on to the ceremony. My brother Bruce was our officiant, with Karen, my sister, as my maid of honor, and Ben, Pete's brother, was his best man. We had Ben's two twin sons, Jacob and Aaron, as our ring bearers. During the rehearsal they were so cute, in their tuxes carrying the ring pillows. I wish I could have seen it myself, but I hear during the actual ceremony, they did great! And of course, there are probably a bazillion pictures documenting their cuteness. :)

Bruce did an awe job as the officiant. I'm lucky he let me read a draft of his talk the day before, because when I read it I was bawling, and that probably would not have been the best thing to do during the ceremony. He made it very personalized for Pete and I, which was great. You know those parts of ceremonies where you almost fall asleep? Well completely objectively-speaking, there were none of those parts during our ceremony. I for one, did not fall asleep. :) Tons of people came up to us afterwards though and told us what a wonderful job Bruce did. There were even a few requests for Bruce at other weddings!


Afterwards came the cocktail hour. We holed ourselves up in our private room for 30 minutes or so then stepped outside for some socializing. The private room was great - family members came in to see us, we played with the twins for a bit, and we even had our own food! I didn't have many of them, but people said the appetizers were great. We had a table with lox and whitefish and bagel fixings, a table of cheeses, olives, and crackers, as well as an assortment of butlered hors d'ouvres brought around to guests: shrimp tempura, wild mushroom phyllo, scallops wrapped in bacon, coconut chicken, beef tenderloin with eggplant, asparagus with goat cheese, peking duck rolls, and crab cakes. And, of course, it was open bar.

Time went so fast! Before we knew it, it was time to go into the reception hall. Bruce went in and was announced first, followed by my parents (Phillip and Catherine Jang) and Pete's mom (Carol Lubetsky). Then we were announced as Mr. and Mrs. Lubang! It was such an amazing feeling to go into that room with everyone cheering and applauding. After our entrance, we went right into our first dance. I know this is what everyone wants to see, so here, courtesy of Jen (my sister-in-law, Ben's wife, and mother of Jacob and Aaron), is a video of our first dance on youtube. We had it choreographed to Let's Get it Started, by the Black Eyed Peas.



The first dance led right into the hora, which was the best idea ever because all the energy from that was transferred into the hora. I've never been lifted or pumped in a chair before, but it's great!! I can't believe they even got my parents up there. And everyone said my dad looked so good in his yarmulke. :) After that, there we had toasts from Ben, Catherine (and Phillip) and Carol. And then we started dinner! Even though we didn't get to eat too much of it, everyone told us the food was so good! I think it was just as good as when we tried it at the tasting dinner. Just because food is my thing, this is what the guests were served:

Appetizers:
Butternut squash soup (delicious!!!)
Caesar salad

Main entree: Guests had a choice of
(1) sweet potato-encrusted NY strip steak grilled medium rare with roasted potatoes and julienned vegetables,
(2) chicken olympia (seared European chicken breast topped with sauteed spinach, roasted red peppers, and feta cheese in a lemon-thyme sauce) with garlic mashed potatoes and julienned vegetables, or

(3) a vegetarian option that I -believe- consisted of tortellini. I guess this shows how much
we cared about the vegetarian entree... :)
Kids got something like chicken fingers and fries.

Dessert: wedding cake! (with coffee or tea) The wedding cake was a layer of vanilla and a layer of chocolate, separated by a coffee ganache and a raspberry layer. The wedding cake was awesome - we got it from Dough Main Bakery. Pete keeps talking about how he wants to order another cake from them. :)

The rest of the wedding was fantastic! We had a father-daughter and mother-son dance, which ended up with all of us dancing together. We did cake cutting and a few more pictures. We talked to so many people, although not nearly as many as I wanted to. At some point we tried to make it around to all the tables, but we probably didn't even get to half of them! I felt really bad about not talking to some people, so I figured it out... the entire reception was 5 hours, but we spent half of the cocktail hour alone, then there were the different dances. Also cake cutting, toasts, etc. - so there were really only about 3 hours to socialize. If you divide that by the number of guests, each guest would only get a little more than a minute! So if I talk to someone for 5 minutes, I shaft 3 to 4 other people! So no wonder I didn't get to talk to everyone - I'm justified by math. And yes, this is pretty nerdy. :)

It was a wonderful day and I think it set the tone for a wonderful life.

4 comments:

plumrose said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
plumrose said...

I had an awesome time at the wedding, your brother and mother had such nice speeches... but I must comment on the vegetarian option....I'm glad I sent it back and got the chicken, and thank goodness I'm a freegetarian.

Thanks for throwing such a great party.

Dylan said...

I had a great time at the wedding, loved the first dance into the chair raising dance (no idea what that is called...). I'm marrying jewish just for that. Finally, a type for me to focus my attention on.

JoJoJangJang said...

Glad you guys had such a good time! :)