The wedding was simple and beautiful. One of the Guam Supreme Court justices conducted the service, which was held at this small little park off to the far eastern end of the hotel’s property.
From there, you can look over the Pacific Ocean, with Puntan Dos Amantes — Two Lovers Point — in the background. In the photo above, it’s the nearest coastal cliff. Guam legend has it that a young Chamorro man and young Chamorro woman were in love. However, the girl’s father promised her to a Spanish officer. The two ran away, to be pursued by the father, the Spanish officer and her men. They reached the edge of the cliff and knew they couldn’t go on. But they also couldn’t go back. So they entwined their hair, held each other in a tight embrace and jumped. Their bodies were never found.
Hmm … kind of a depressing story in relation to a wedding, but there you go.
Like I said, it was a beautiful ceremony, given the location. The weather was perfect. It was held at 5:30, as twilight approached, making the lighting perfect. And though it was warm for anyone in a tuxedo or suit, there was a cool breeze and there was ample water available.
Oh, did I mention that the groom, a co-worker of mine, is the son of the hotel’s general manager? That’s a
REALLY good thing when you hold a wedding at a hotel. The staff is sure to work double hard to make sure everything is right, so you get the best service. You also get no expense spared for everything else, including food.
Once the ceremony was over and I congratulated the groom and kissed the bride — who, by the way, is a close family friend. That is to say, I’m a close friend to her and her family — and then headed over to the hotel. They had cocktails for everyone in a recently remodeled restaurant across the hall from the reception hall — which is the second largest ballroom in the hotel. Simply lovely.
After that it was across the hall to the reception. I got lucky and chose a table near the buffet lines, including the station serving roast pig and Beef Wellington. I know, huh? Fucking Beef Wellington, at a reception for more than 200
(estimated).The justice came over and sat next to me, along with her husband, a prominent dentist. Also at the table was one of the island’s top attorneys, a friend of mine who’s a semi-prominent businessman and his wife and young son, and the superintendent of the school system, where the bride works.
I then did the preliminaries, as emcee — announcing the bride and the groom as they came in, then announcing everyone in the entourage, as well as special guests. I also announced the toasts of the matron of honor and best man, who also happened to be the groom’s father. Then, I got to invite everyone to eat.
THE FOODFour words: Oh. My. Fucking. God.
The food was top-notch and world-class. And there was
TONS of it! I’m hungry again just thinking back to last night to make this post. Fucking amazing. OK … enough teasing:
• The salad station. It wasn’t a giant one, but it wasn’t iceberg lettuce and radishes, you know? There were several cold salads also available, such as macaroni and pasta. This station also had imported German cold cuts — pastrami, salami, Genoa salami, Parma ham, prosciutto.
• The seafood station. Picture a giant, three-tier silver fountain, each tier deep dishes. Ice on the bottom of each tier, which are stacked and packed with the following: king crab; mussels; oysters; shrimp; prawns. There also were a variety of other seafood dishes — about five or six others. I didn’t pay too much attention to it; I had some crab but I’m not big into seafood.
• Main buffet line. Rice (the sticky short-grain that’s served in Chinese/Asian restaurants), a vegetable dish, roasted potatoes with garlic
(yes! fuck!), sliced beef tenderloin in a gravy, fish filets in a sauce (not sure what kind; again, not big on fish and seafood), a noodle dish I think and lamb. Oh, and right before the buffet line was basically three wide, deep shelves filled with a variety of bread and rolls, plus butter.
• Korean station. Noodles and other side dishes, beef bulgogi, grilled boneless chicken breast, a spicy version of the bulgogi.
• Roy’s station. The hotel has a Roy’s Restaurant — the one from Hawaii, if you know it. If you don’t amazing food — it’s one of those expensive, fancy dinner restaurants. Their special Mongolian ribs — meat falling off the bone, melting in your mouth … basically, orgasm-inducing meat. Fancied up oysters on the half shell. Their special crab rolls.
• Sushi station. This place also has an
AMAZING Japanese teppanyaki restaurant with top-of-the-line sushi chefs. It’s one of my favorite all-time restaurants
(It’s the one reopening soon, where we had the cocktails. Come on, keep up!). They had several platters of pre-made sushi — California rolls, tempura shrimp rolls. Two of the chefs were also there to hand-make fresh sushi for the guest. Again, I’m not all that big on seafood, but it was a
VERY popular food station with the guests. Oh, I almost forgot the sashimi — high-grade tuna sashimi, complete with wasabi and ginger.
• Carved meat station. As I mentioned earlier, roast sucking pig. It was cooked perfectly — most of the skin was hard and crispy, with a thin layer of fat underneath … both crunchy and sublimely greasy. Fuck. And the meat was juicy beyond belief. Next to it was the Beef Wellington. They must have gone through a dozen or more. For those who don’t know what it is — a very tender cut of beef, covered with foie gras, then wrapped in a pastry dough. With a special sauce for it. Damn my mouth is watering.
• Dessert station. Holy shit. Seriously. About 10 kinds of desserts. Cakes. Pies. Custards. Tarts. Other delectables. There was a multi-tiered chocolate fountain — oozing premium European chocolate, with fruit skewers for dipping. Plus the wedding cake — a super-delicious strawberry shortcake kind of deal.
• Booze. Free-flowing wine — a fine red and a light, fruity white. Champagne. Beer. Mixed drinks.
RECEPTION, PART 2
My table was filled with interesting dinner conversation, as you can imagine from the different people I was sitting with. Lots of jokes, some of them dirty
(though surprisingly, none from me … really. I saved my jokes for the emcee patter). Good conversation, good food, good wine — that's hard to beat.
After dinner, I resumed emcee duties: bringing the bride and groom up to cut the cake and to do the bouquet toss and garter belt thing — all the while engaging and entertaining the crowd, making small talk based on questionnaires I gathered from family and friends at the rehearsal dinner.
Then it was time for the couple’s first dance, bride’s dance with her father, and a few other dance-with-relative things. After that, it was time to open it up for the money dance.
What is the money dance, you ask? Well, thank you for that pointed question. The money dance is a traditional part of Guam weddings, especially for those of the Catholic faith who also are Chamorro. It’s basically a way to help a newlywed couple at the start of their life together. Men get to dance with the bride for a short time after pinning a bill on her veil, while women get to dance with the groom by pinning money to his tux jacket. The amount you pin on depends. At this reception, one-dollar bills were the exception. Most were tens and twenties. There may have been some fifties as well.
The rest of the night was spent drinking, going back to the stations for some more food, dancing, etc. Well, most people danced. I don’t dance … though I did do the money dance part — it’s a cultural imperative. The rest, not so much.
So there you go. I got a lot of compliments on the emcee job, so at least I wasn’t an utter failure. Hell. I have to admit. I was really good. That’s not bragging; it’s simply the truth. :)
Note: not all of the photos shown here are from the wedding — I didn’t get a chance to take pics of the food stations. But I wanted to give you guys some idea of what it all looked like.
For pics I *did* shoot, scroll on down. There are two posts — one with a few general pics, another with me all gussied up. Enjoy!Random Guam Fact Of The Day:• See the money dance part of the post, above. Heh.
This is my barbershop. Conveniently, it's located just about a 3-iron away from my apartment in Anigua. I used to go to a couple of different places, but the guy who shaves my head at this place does a good job and, again, it's close.
Here's my barber, just finishing up with the anti-hair cover/apron/whatever the hell it is. He's shaved my head dozens of times ... and yet I still don't know his name.
Here I am getting the shaving cream put on. On the name thing: You know what? He doesn't know mine either. He's hoss and I'm boss. "OK, boss, all done." I hand over a $20, getting $5 in change — $10 for the "haircut," $5 tip. "Thanks, hoss." I'm sure we'll exchange Christian names at some point in our relationship.
The end result. Nice and cleanly shaved. No nicks or cuts. Definitely worth $15, especially when you consider he shaves my face as well and gives me a good 5- to 10-minute neck rub using one of those old-school, metal vibrating hands of death in anything but the hands of a master massagers. Nice.
DZER's Guam Pics has been updated with a bunch of new photos. There are some of flowers (see above), some views of Hagåtña, more trees and sky and clouds, even a pack of wild, carnivorous chickens!
