Oops…

Today has been an bizarre, but insanely funny day that definitely falls under the ‘T-Factor‘ banner and I just wanted to jot it down in a short post while it’s fresh in my memory so Anna and myself can continue to laugh about it in full detail for perpetuity so here goes…

Normally Saturday mornings are free for Anna, except for today when she had to get up early for an online meeting. I, on the other hand, was able to sleep in, I had heard her alarm go off, but soon drifted back to sleep. It didn’t seem like too long afterwards that she burst into the room, switched the lights on, and said loudly, “I forgot, we have a wedding to go to this afternoon!”. It was for the daughter of one of her friends, Ali, and I’m not a fan of large social gatherings where I don’t know anybody, but I was soon reassured that they were Malay, therefore it was a Muslim wedding so we wouldn’t be there for the entire ceremony, we just had to show up at some stage between midday and 4:00pm to pay our respects.

After a couple of cups of coffee I had a shower and asked about the dress code, Anna said it’ll be quite casual, just pants and a short-sleeved shirt would be fine so I donned one of my less flamboyant shirts and Anna put on a pair of short, pink, puffy pants and a sleeveless shirt. The wedding was at the Changi Civil Service Club, which is about a 30-minute cab ride for us so we jumped in our taxi for a trip that took even longer due to torrential rain, me making I Dream of Jeannie references the entire time because of the pants.
We eventually arrived at the club, saw a lot of people dressed in traditional Islamic attire, the men in their robes and caps, the women in full-length skirts, sleeved tops, and hijabs so we knew we were in the right place, but we weren’t sure of the actual location so we asked one of the security guards as we exited the taxi. He pointed us in the direction of the building and told us to go to level four so we took an elevator up. I haven’t been to an Muslim wedding before, but Anna’s friend is married to a Muslim man so she knew most of the routine. Similar to giving an ang pau at Chinese weddings, a green envelope is given at Malay ones, but obviously we aren’t Malay so before we left home Anna had put some money in one of the red ones she has, wrote a message of goodwill from the two of us on it, and figured they would understand. Upon entering the room she placed the envelope in the box on a table at the door and there was a middle-aged woman greeting people and shaking hands with everyone who entered, but as soon as it came to us we were shunned, she immediately turned her back on us and decided something else needed taking care of. We were now in a large room and there was not a bare arm or leg in sight. There was only one other Chinese person and no caucasians so we stood out a little in the crowd, something that became even more evident when we saw ourselves in the mirrored wall adjacent to where we were standing. Anyhow, we walked around the room looking for Anna’s friend, she had described him to me so I kept pointing out people, asking “Is that him?”, but to no avail. For someone my size, children aren’t always in my field of vision, especially when they are playing on the floor so as I was wandering around trying to find the father of the bride, I accidentally kicked a small child in the ribs with my not-so-worn-in Dr. Marten boots, yelling “Oh, shit!” and tripping over him in the process, drawing the attention of many of the guests. As I tried to catch my balance, I then stood on the boy’s foot, pulling his shoe off, but he was a little trooper and didn’t even make a sound so that was a small blessing in disguise.

We couldn’t find Anna’s friend so we went over to what appeared to be the rest of the family, shook their hands, and Anna asked multiple times where Ali was. There was a little confusion as Anna kept repeating herself, saying she was a friend of Ali’s and we were looking for him so she pulled out her phone to show them the text he had sent her to invite us to the wedding. “Oops”, Anna said, “That wedding is next weekend.”. The family laughed and told us we could stick around for lunch if we wanted, but the embarrassment of arriving uninvited and underdressed to a very traditional Muslim wedding of two complete strangers and injuring a child while there cut a little too deep, to the point that Anna instinctively took the stairs back down rather than the elevator so we didn’t have to look any real guests in the eye again.

Fortunately for us the Little Island Brewery is just around the corner from the venue so even if we had decided to have lunch at the wedding, it would’ve been a dry event, thus no way to drown our shame. We opted for the brewery, had a couple of beers and some wings while laughing uncontrollably at how our day had panned out so far. It was then that it occurred to Anna that she had given the ang pau to a couple of complete strangers so as we had gifted them a significant amount of cash for their wedding, maybe we should’ve eaten our money’s worth there, perhaps even get some professional photos with the bride and groom. They would have no idea who we were at first, but I’m sure they’d figure it out later once they found the one red envelope amongst all of the green ones adorned with two names that are very different from the rest.

I guess today can serve as a literal dress rehearsal for next weekend, long sleeves and covered ankles it is.