**CONCLUSION**

Xograce- how exciting! Another tea ceremony victim. Lol what's the details of yours?

Just thought I'd chime in here...FH is also Chinese but his parents aren't too traditional. His mom just requests a LOT of flowers and she wants to impress her friends haha! But I thought it was interesting Champagne that you're learning Chinese. My FH speaks Shanghai (it was technically his first language) but he doesn't have an accent. I only know his and his sister's name in Chinese because his parents always use it. And his mom speaks in Chinese to him a lot and doesn't realize it and will start talking to both of us and my FH has to say "Mom...English!" so sometimes it's funny. This past trip she would say "dinner's ready" in Chinese but I never knew what she was saying and so she taught me what it is, but I forgot already! I hope to learn a little more at least. The interesting thing is FH knows Shanghai, his sister knows Mandarin, so he and his sister only really talk in English to each other. There's an 11 year age gap and his parents decided to switch to Mandarin more when his sister was born. It's all so interesting!

HIH- I would strongly suggest you try to learn some. It's been really helpful to me and his mom LOVES when I talk to her. Sometimes it's the only way I feel like I can make her happy. I wasn't given much of a choice tho. FH is 1st gen so his mother repeatedly reminds me that if we don't carry on the language and tradition that it's gonna die with them. Even though it's a thorn in my side at times, that's a responsibility I'm marrying into so I'm along for the ride.

Aww that's great! We had thought about having a Vietnamese tea ceremony, but I really liked the Thai water ceremony more than the tea ceremony so that's why we went with the water ceremony (since FH is Thai/Vietnamese). Of course I did get a Vietnamese wedding Ao Dai so that my FMIL could send pictures back to Vietnam. Best of all worlds and I love dresses.

Glad it all worked out champagne!! sounds like a great compromise and all is happy!

@Champagne, sorry for the late response. Started a new job today and unfortunately they don't allow WW at work, grrrr...I guess I actually have to work FH and I live in Northern Virginia. We have decent Chinese food where we are at.

@care bear- they don't allow WW at work? I'd quit now lol. What do you do? I'm a registered nurse and FH is in banking.

ChampagneDream, that's really impressive that you're learning Chinese. How are you doing it? It's difficult to learn as an adult because of the tones. When I took some adult conversational classes, the teacher had us use chinesepod.com sometimes. They have some free lessons there.

CareBear, I lived in northern VA for 5 years before moving south. Despite the increasingly bad traffic, I love the area, miss the diversity, and the food is so much better up there. During our proposal weekend, I took my husband to Pho 75 on Wilson Blvd. in Rosslyn, VA and now he is dissatisfied with the pho that we have locally. Nothing compares to Pho 75!!

Champagne, I think I lost a few hours of sleep over the stress of this situation. I'm so glad it worked out for you, and I'm kind-of jealous of all you girls out there with fabulous cultures and customs. We're Irish and English..zzzzzzzz. We're all drinking in an Irish Pub the night before the wedding. It's at least apropos.

One more thing, way to go on learning the language. That's very cool.

@ChampagneDream, haha LOL trust me I was tempted to quit. I went from checking WW several times throughout the day to only once a day right before I go to bed. It was eating me up at work today, I had the urge to break protocol but didn't. I am an analyst and my company is just very strict about everyone actually doing work. FH does computer work, specifically what I couldn't say. Whenever he start talking about computers and his job, my mind drifts. LOL

@MarriedJ!, awww I think I actually ate at Pho 75 before. I have been to several other Vietnamese restaurants in the NOVA and you are right it is pretty darn good. That is too bad about your husband not liking the local cuisine anymore. More of an excuse to visit Northern VA

@ Karen- I'm sorry you lost a little sleep over this fiasco. I did too, but now we're happy and its alllll good!! Culture is a beautiful thing and I'm thrilled to get to learn so much, but it really can throw a wrench in your plans. All is well so I'm must going with it. Be looking for my "back and served tea" post

@ CareBear- I can see how your new employer would prefer that you would work rathen than WW. I'm sure my boss would too, but she doesn't know. haha. I basically made all of my calls and emails for vendors from work so I've spent a lot of company time on our wedding. Shhhh

@MarriedJ- I'm learning from him. Some days we don't speak any English and I have to just figure it out, but being around it helps a lot. We started off just learning words and now I'm putting them together and making sentences. I can understand a lot more than I can say... def still a work in progress. He doesn't read or write it so I don't expect to become completely literate, but I def want to be fluent.

Ps. I hope you girls are happy!! Now I'm craving pho. There's a Pho 75 right outside Chinatown Philly and their pho is amazing. That reminds me... I promised all our friends I'd make a big pot of pho and host a board game night!! I better get on that!! lol You guys ever make it?? It's an all day ordeal for me (Don't have it mastered yet) , but it's totally worth it.

ChampagneDream, no way, I wouldn't even attempt to make pho from scratch. I hardly ever cook any Asian food actually. My husband and I were both born in the USA and only eat Asian food about 20% of the time. We don't even have a rice cooker. Pho would probably take all day or at least half a day to make the broth. It would be much easier to drive out and get a decent bowl from a restaurant for $9. CareBear, you're lucky to be in NoVA. I used to go to all those restaurants around the Clarendon metro and loved Cafe Asia in Rosslyn also. Now I'm stuck in NC, which is not that bad (things have changed a bit in the past 10 years), but none of the ethnic restaurants are that good.

Karen- I guess it's all up to the bride and groom to research what customs they'd like to incorporate. Come to think of it, it would have been neat to throw in some Korean wedding customs since my husband is Korean Am, but I sure didn't know what do really do and he didn't care. From what I've heard, the bride and groom dress up in traditional clothes and the groom carries the bride around on his back. Then there's something about the guests throwing fruit in the air for the bride to run around and catch in her skirt! It could have been extra fun at our wedding but we had a pretty ho-hum, standard wedding affair. I did suggest that a friend surprise everyone doing his Gangnam style routine; he already had the costume and performed it at a work function, which was hilarious. However, my husband vetoed that also.