Tue 8 Jan 2008
Paper: Asian Moms’ Kryptonite
Posted by cindy under Cilly Stuff , Wedding Memories at 2:55 pm[7] Comments
I’m still dealing with my roofing nightmare at home (turns out to be a bigger problem than I thought — the entire roof may have to be replaced, and probably the entire indoors ceiling, too; my association and I are going back and forth about what’s whose liability and who should pay for what), so here’s a funny for the blog.
I was telling commenter ‘a’ about my wedding progress, and about how my invitations are done and on order. My mom wasn’t thrilled with the appearance of the paper cardstock, since it’s white and white is the Chinese funeral color. Despite the fact that there are pretty red cherry blossoms down the length of the paper on one end, the white paper paired with black lettering made her appear very unimpressed when I showed her the proof online. “Is it maybe ivory, and not really white? Or does the white paper have silver or a metallic highlight?” she asked hopefully. I informed her that not only is the paper white, the color is called ‘bright white.’ I had to hand it to her; she dropped it.
I know my bridesmaid Vicky had a similar invitation argument with her mother, except she had to order a second set of invitations to patch things with her mom. Commenter ‘a’ apparently had the same thing happen to her. Invitations…BIG DEAL with Asian moms! Who knew? ‘a’ ‘s hilarious story, in her own words (with some light editing to make it blog-friendly), posted with her permission:
~ * ~
“Oh gosh, they [the wedding invitations] were just white w/ black print, so we decided to spruce it by adding a light gray silk bow. Took me 3 stores to find the gray I liked. [I] finally get home, start doing them and she’s [mom’s] helping me halfway thru; then she says, ‘I think pink would be better. Pink is more good luck.’
HERE WE GO.
So I’m like ‘No, we’re almost halfway done, we’re not doing pink now.’
‘No pink, good luck. No pink, good luck. No pink, good luck.’
You get the picture. She would not SHUT IT! So then I’m reduced to screaming, ‘Be quiet!!!’
Then my dad comes out and asks wut all the noise is about. And he tells me I need to calm down.
So I’m like, ‘We’re almost halfway done and she’s nagging me about pink bows!!! And she won’t be quiet!!!’
So dad turns to her and tells her to stop bothering me.
And all the while [fiance] Mark is like silent, cuz he’s scared. The end.
…No the best part is at the end! Where after my dad scolds her, she turns to Mark and says, ‘I’m sorry.’ And I’m like WTF, wut about ME??!?!??!
OH NOOOOOOOOOOO, I forgot, THIS IS THE BEST PART…
So weeks later we’re finally sending out the invites cuz we have them addressed and ready. So we hand them [parents] their stack for their guests, so they can mail it themselves to avoid any accusations that we didnt mail theirs, right? So one day I find their stack on their desk and I pull one that’s still unsealed out.
EFFING PINK BOW!! She replaced my bow w/ her own effing pink bow! So for all time, to all of her guests, I have like Little Bo Peep taste. So w/ all the courage I could muster, I silently inhaled and placed it back into the envelope w/o comment. Cuz I didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of upsetting me again. But the look on Mark’s face when he saw it was like ‘oh shiet, here comes wwIII.’
Oh wait. As I’m telling this story I’m remembering more. hahahaha, I think I repressed it all until now!!! I remember wut I did!!!!
I took out her pink bow ones and put in my extra gray bow ones, then I sealed it so it couldn’t be changed.”
~ * ~
‘a’ explained that her parents couldn’t address the envelopes to their own satisfaction, so ‘a’ and her fiance had pre-printed envelopes with her parents’ guests’ addresses. No way they were going to tear open the envelopes to change the bows because they wouldn’t want to re-address everything themselves and find new envelopes. Therefore, all the ones ‘a’ caught were sent out with the gray ribbons.
TELL ME that’s not funny!!! Are your parents like this?
Whose wedding is it…’a’ or her mom’s??? I’d be SO pissed if my mom took it upon herself to change MY wedding inviations!!
Did I miss the date of your wedding somewhere?? I’m assuming since your invites are ready…you have a date??
nuh uh… my parents didn’t care, my in laws didn’t care. My Mom just can’t live without a catholic church wedding, other than that, the fact that we are having our wedding 500 miles away from both families didn’t even raise a fight 😀
*sigh* yes, such is my life.
in the meantime, hope everything goes well with the roofing. i mean, how can a girl lead her fabulous life without a basic roof over her head?!?
My mom is exactly the same. My wedding invitations were b&w and had a b&w photo of me and the ex. Mom said it looked like invitations to a funeral. THANKS. Did you share with “a” the story about the stupid wedding favors? Wedding color? Staying at home the night before? It’s their fault for bringing me to the US so I can learn non-Asian ways of doing things. I haven’t lived in Taiwan for like, 20 years.
Needless to say, next time I get married I will certainly consider eloping. This may actually be possible since they dislike my current boyfriend so much. ALL PART OF THE MASTER PLAN, I SAY.
My parents would just be happy to see me married. …Hell, at this point they’d settle for a baby’s mama just so they could be grand parents!
Ya know, I’ve seen stuff like this before, in fact it sounds so familiar (except the whole wedding thing)
Flat Coke – http://cindy.ocliw.com/?p=1455
Yeah, I’d be mad if my mom CHANGED my invitations w/o my permission, too. It’s one thing to have an opinion, it’s another thing to tamper with my crap.
idlehouse – you had a destination wedding? I was considering that but a lot of details would be too hard to arrange from far away. I THINK my parents were okay with that, tho. Where was your wedding?
a – your sigh-worthy life is great experience and entertainment for the rest of us, so thank you for sharing!
still working on roofing schtuff. I suppose I can make an argument for a fabulous life living under private indoor ponds or something.
Vicky – Yup, told ‘a’ about the pear issue and you having to order double favors, too. I don’t remember the issue about the wedding color. You still got to have your spring green, no? I haven’t talked much about the staying home the nite before thing cuz I’m irritated about it and not ready to deal w/it yet. I did have a little outburst about it at my parents’ house and my mom backed off about that, too — totally made me feel bad.
You can’t elope without me!!
Dwaine – I don’t think your parents, as eager as they are to be grandparents, would be cool with you knocking up some random chica. Can’t you cavalierly slide the pressure over onto your other two brothers? They ARE both older than you (granted, Andrae is older by only 25 mins, but still).
TurboTiger – it sounds familiar except the whole wedding thing? How is it familiar, if all these complaints revolve around wedding invitations and customs? Could it be that YOUR Asian parents are even crazier than ours that they give you this kind of crap even WITHOUT a wedding? *gasp*