Wedding BB8

 Wedding BB8: A Review of Two Faithful People Uniting in a Godless Society

The Ceremony: 12/10

Overall the ceremony was beautiful with the premise set early: this is a faith based Christian wedding with God and the family as its grounding point. The beautiful couple and the celebration of their love was as important as their faith and family. In totality, the couple succeeded on all three fronts. To better illustrate what I mean, I will break down my scoring into three parts: Piety (God as the focus), Filial Piety (Parents as a focus), and the couple’s love (do I need to explain this?). Normally for faith based weddings, particularly Christian and Catholic weddings, I score only Piety and the couple’s love because that’s what I’m used to. Bonnie and Brian went all out and included their parents as a focus, and as a warm blooded Asian, I am a huge sucker for filial piety, and that gets bonus points.

Piety: 5/5

Normally most couples would just have a prayer, some words, the pastor/priest says a few words, everyone sings a few songs and on with the ceremony. Sometimes this drags on for too long, or is so rote cough Catholic weddings cough it gets boring. This however, was concise, but meaningful. Throughout the ceremony, including the exchange of personal vows God was the focus, and personal stories of how God helped foster the couple’s love made it feel like it wasn’t just an after thought. This is from my experience, a bit of a rarity. To see it pulled off so sincerely and be so well integrated is inspiring. The pace and dedications were steady and didn’t linger over any one thing for too long. Take me to church, this was good.

Filial Piety: +2 Points

This was unexpected, but taking time during the ceremony to dedicate time to their parents is peak filial piety and your boy appreciated that. I was expecting just one quick dedication to both sets of parents, but Bonnie and Brian went the extra step and honored each set of parents separately. So one bonus point for each set of parents honored

The Couple: 5/5

Brian singing to Bonnie as she walked down the aisle is not only brave, but very sweet. It touched my cold frozen heart, The couple themselves were beautiful, both inside and out, and the anecdotes, vows and stories were very entertaining. Overall the love felt sincere, down to earth, and very relatable. It showcased how much love can grow and differ, and how it is very unique to every relationship. To take part in it and feel it so deeply just from the vows spoken, as well as the stories everyone in the ceremony had, is an experience I would not mind reliving. Plus Robin cried and totally lost it. Easily a perfect score.

The Reception + Dinner: 13/10

The scoring for this section is a little bit different and split into two unequal parts. The Reception is worth 4 points, the dinner worth 6 points. The first is the reception, or as I call it, the Bride and Groom’s ceremonial break. Truth be told, I know that this is far from a break for the lovely couple, but it is a break for the guests to stretch their legs and chat. It is also when the honored couple must make their first round of check-ins with their guests. The reception is primarily scored on two things: the bar (if it exists) and the appetizers. The Dinner is more involved and is a much more complicated endeavor to score and the break down goes as follows: 2 points for food, 2 points for the dedications, toasts and various cermonies honoring the couple’s love, and then 2 points for the dance. Now with the criteria set, let’s get into it.

Bar: 2/2

My scoring system for this is super shallow. You get a 1 if a bar exists, or barring a non-alcohol wedding, any sort of refreshments exist. You get a 2 for an open bar, regardless of whether or not you have to pay for cocktails. There was an open bar. I did not have the strength to abuse it (had too much to drink the night before), but it was well welcomed, and the champagne was delicious. There was also tea and coffee, of which Daisy partook. I thought that was very considerate.

Appetizers: 2/2

Very good appetizers. They tasted very good. Everything from the phyllo pastries, to the taquitoes, and the sliders with fries were just so good, but not too filling. The balance was immaculate. The sliders in particular were just too good. Narith swore to only eat one of each appetizer, but the sliders + fries were so good he ate two. I want to say that is an indicator of just how good it was, but this is Narith; he will give in to peer pressure if it is strong enough. To be fair he mostly stuck to his guns.

Dinner Food: 3/2

The Brian and Bonnie Rilakkuma macaroons super cute. The fact that canonically Rilakkuma are just beings wearing a suit somehow makes this even cuter. In my head canon, Brian and Bonnie are wearing bear suits getting married. It is like a wedding within a wedding all in a tiny dessert box. Tres bien, Magnifique theming. Sesame Brian flavor was very good. The sesame flavor was creamy, smokey, sweet and savory. It was a very complex and deep taste for a macaroon. It provided a solid compliment to the Bonnie milk tea flavor. It tasted like a good milk tea should: refreshing, aromatic, and picks you right up as it hits the back of your palette. My preference for the macaroons is skewed towards the milktea flavor (not surprising, married a girl whose nickname is “Laicha”) so obviously I prefer the Bonniekuma but it felt incomplete without the smokey sesame Briankuma. Very good and fitting choices: it invoked the idea where one maybe good, but it's definitely better together. You get an extra point for the bears alone.

The actual food was very good. French cuisine is certainly not my first choice but everything was very tasty and made masterfully. The cake too was delicious. It was very mocha and you know your boi loves mocha.

The Ceremonies: 3/2

I usually rate ceremonies based on how fun they are and how heart warming they are. It’s usually an easy two points for most weddings. Here it would be. The shoe game sync was impressive. The toasts from both fathers also highlights, the first from Brian’s dad was very warm and comforting. Bonnie’s dad’s dual language toasts was impressive and the man put in a lot of effort to convey how he felt in two languages. That alone would put you guys in solid perfect score territory. What pushed it over the edge were the sibling’s toasts. Robin was charismatic, funny, honest, and was real. Andrea embarrassing herself is top tier content and I will never get enough of it. For once, Salt Salt was not salty. And then Robin cried during the slide show. Easy bonus point for this section.

The Dance: 3/2

This is usually where I give a lot of leeway for most weddings. Most people don’t dance, particularly in Chinese weddings. Doing an actual first dance gets an automatic 1 point. However, y'all stepped and it was straight fire. I was about it. Smooth, in sync, and then Brian picked Bonnie up. It was SO extra and I LOVED it. Instant perfect 2/2. The parent dances were sweet (we didn’t do it at our wedding because just like Daisy, her parents can’t dance). For me, what pushed this score one more point over the edge was the fact that among the guests you invited, not a single wall flower among your guests. Extremely impressive because I’ve been to many Chinese weddings and it was not uncommon for half the room to just watch very shyly. This was not the case. I was blown away. The only wall flowers were the guests Nate and I brought (yes I am shaming Daisy and Queenie), but in your defense: they were our guests.

Overall: 25/20

So after much thought the final score comes down to 25 points out of 20. I have to say, it was a great wedding. It was well worth the drive and an experience I would experience again in a heartbeat. For the sake of your health, sanity, and wallet, I will elect not to. Regardless, top tier wedding in my book. Thank you for having us. I only hope your life together is even more beautiful than the wedding.