Manh-Dan + Chris Wedding, 5 Sep 09

Certainly one of the most interesting wedding ceremonies I've shot for. Manh-Dan and Chris are from New Joisey but wanted to have a wedding celebrating in Manh-Dan's hometown of Rochester for her family. It's complicated, but this actually is wedding #2 of 3 for them.. who gets 3 weddings? How lucky! Anyway, I was glad to participate and help out, as Manh-Dan is the sister-in-law of my former nanny (nephew's cousin's former roommate? <-- points for knowing where that quote came from). The ceremony was done in a traditional Vietnamese style, where the bridegroom's family presents gifts (the dowry) to the bride's family before he's allowed to enter the bride's home. After accepting them, the bride then is presented by her father and they are then married. After their ceremony they went to the Shanghai restaurant for a small reception with the funniest cornball MC I'd seen in a while.

Anyway onto the images:

Groomsmen prepare the gifts down the street from the bride's parent's home.

Unfortunately, the bride's brother Khahn left the keys to his car in his parent's house.. and couldn't go get them.. so I had to. Why is this important? Because sitting inside his black car with dark tinted windows in the sun with the windows down is a full sized roast pig. Not only would the car reek for days if left inside, they would have no feast for lunch! So here I am giving them all the keys that were on the hook (I didn't know which ones to get). I'm such a nice guy, helping people out with their wedding :)

After presenting the gifts, the father goes upstairs to get the bride. How funny is it when she was bizusted paying bills online while she waited! Ha!

On with the ceremony :)

And she comes down, hooray!

Exchange gifts between families and the bride and groom...

Tea ceremony

Manh-Dan's parents giving gifts, with both grandmothers and Chris' parents in the background.

Seeing that their traditional American-style wedding is next week in NJ, we didn't do many formal portraits per the couples' request. But I had to sneak a few in, how could I pass that up with such wonderful outfits? :)

My friends Laura (the nanny) and Khahn

Different angle for a change...

I can still hear the MC (who's singing in the background) telling her that she is the most beee-you-tiful bride ever (tounge firmly in cheek). Are you ready New Jersey!?

And a nice one to wrap it up:

I enjoyed the 11-course dinner and party, thanks for a good time and a unique wedding to photograph.

-- Andrew