Wedding In Countryside

Dan is my friend who I used to work with five years ago when I first arrived in Hanoi. A nice young guy, who is 28 and so brave that he decided to marry last Friday. Three other friends and I went to Ha Tay(a province next to Hanoi) to attend his wedding. We left Hanoi at 8.30Am and caught up with some other friends from his work on the way and finally arrived at his house after going the wrong way for several kilometres. He is the youngest guy in the family and his mother now is over 70, She is a very generous typical countryside lady. She's so lovely, she came and talked to us about how Dan grew up and how she had to ask him a thousand times about getting married. She was so happy by the way she talked and from her eyes. Weddings in the countryside are a chance for the locals to get dressed up.

As with many other weddings which I've attended in the countryside around Hanoi, they turned on loud dance music, it was very crowded and most of the neighborhood around came and helped to cook and decorate the house with lots of balloons and a hilarious picture on the stage which is common at these weddings. People prepared food very early in the morning because the meal started from 9am and went until 12am as we had our meal at 10.30am then we all followed Dan's family to pick up the bride. He told us it was only 9 kms away and took about 15 minutes but it seemed 30kms for all of us and it actually ended up taking one hour. The road was terrible and everyone joked that Dan's so brave to get to know her because of this long crappy road.

Finally, we arrived at the bride's house and watched a very long reception as family and friends of the bride gave her jewellery and money and they put incense on the altar, wishing they will stay together until all their teeth and hair falls out. I wanted to take some photos of the food, which some of the relatives thought was strange. One old lady said the food was ugly which made me laugh. A good thing about the food was that there was no cat meat and no dog meat, only chicken, beef, goat, pork, spring rolls, cakes and oranges for dessert. They sent us to a neighbour's house and we had a great place to sit right near the pig's house, where about twenty pigs were letting off a not very nice perfume smell. Nice!!!

One more thing about countryside weddings is the very nice atmosphere but do not walk out the back of the house where they cook and clean because you may laugh out loud or you may run away when you see the cleaning and cooking techniques.

Anyway, Congratulations Dan and Trang, all the best for your future life. I hope it's full of love and happiness!