EVENING GATHERING
The party at night was a little tiring as it had already been a long day, but it was still was an awesome time. Its quite different to what a "western reception" is like. There were seats and tables behind Tuu's house for 300-400 people. Tuu and I spent the first 2 hours of the night standing at the front of Tuu's house welcoming everybody that came. Being on our feet that long after already being on our feet for most of the day was quite a challenge. We just kept smiling though as we greeted everyone, it was good to see so many people coming to enjoy themselves. Some fo them would sit down, eat and leave before others would even get there. People come and go, not like a western wedding where everyone is expected to be there at a certain time. After we had finished out the front we were called straight up on stage to answer questions and do speeches. We had our friends P'Noiy and Bronwyn help us by doing interviews/game/translation. It was especially an amazing effort from them as Bronwyn was 7 months pregnant and they had only a couple hours of sleep the night before because of the long distance they had to travel.
I think it was about 9:30 by the time things started wrapping up, which felt like 12:30 to us. Tuu and I were happy as we could finally get off our feet and eat the yummy food that everyone else had been eating. Normally a wedding party would've run for another 2 hours or so, but as the King's sister had recently passed away, the country was in a period of mourning and there was a ban on having louds music / parties, so this meant that there was no entertainment for the Thais to party-on into the night.
It was an awesome day it really was, we have to thank God for his goodness, in helping us firstly get to the day. Some things we just couldn't see how it would work out, but God knew! and a big thanks to everyone else that was involved in our wedding...those that came so far to support us simply by being there, and those that were at home praying for us. It really gave us so much encouragement and joy!
HONEYMOON
Tuu and I decided to go somewhere other than Thailand for our honeymoon, even though the south of Thailand does have some of the nicest beaches in the world, we wanted to go somewhere outside of Thailand, so we decided to go to Penang and Langkawi. I had already lived in Penang for 3 months so I knew my way around, especially the great places to eat and shop. So we flew from Bkk to Penang and had one night in the luxurious E & O (thanks to Jared, who gave it to us as a wedding gift). Its a very flash hotel with an a long history. It was very cool, but almost too much, I felt rather weird having our own personal butler.
After that we went across on the ferry to Langkawi, and spent a few days there in a pleasant resort called Mutiara Burau. This resort was on a nice beach where there weren't lots of other hotels, so we were quite happy about that. it was a big difference from coming from a 5star hotel to this, but we both liked the atmosphere and the surroundings. It had everything we needed... oh and it fitted into our budget ;) But honestly we'd recommend it to anyone. The pool was nice, and the service was excellent, so definitely worth a look. One day we hired a car and went for a drive around the island, that was interesting but still there isn't a whole lot on the island. The highlight though was going on the cable car up to the top of the mountain, the photo just doesn't do the view justice.
