You know these days, a wedding dinner is never complete without a photo slideshow of the wedding couple. It's as cliched as it can be, but I guess the purpose is to share the bliss of the couple's journey with guests, to share where they started their couplehood and how they have come so far. It's supposed to lend a warm and personal touch, a love story told through pictures.
Most friends I know aren't too sentimental about this, and not a few even had their friends do the slideshow for them. I often wonder if the couple gave some thought to the photos that were selected for the slideshow though. For they have to select a few choice photos to cover their entire life thus far, from pre-birth (that is, their parents!) to birth to toddler to school to army to university to - the list goes on. Yet there's only time and space for that many photos to be shown. Would they care to choose something memorable or signifcant, something that captures a part of their life journey before they now turn into someone's husband or wife? (It is noteworthy that all photo slideshows start with the groom, then followed by the bride - how typical of our paternalistic tradition!)
Truth be told, the only times when I enjoyed viewing such slideshows are at the wedding dinners of close friends. That's because I feel a closer connection, naturally.
Last year, I was at Cal's wedding dinner. The lights dimmed, the slideshow began to play. I was expecting the usual, to see a toddler grow to a young man to the transformed husband of somebody today. What I did not expect was to see a photo of Cal, Ts and me come up on screen. It was totally unexpected, and I didn't know if I was surprised or touched. It was silly because I didn't think C thought of anything about the photo. In fact, it's probably randomly selected. This much about C I know.
Nevertheless, I was struck by the photo. It was taken nearly 10 years ago, at a time when we were trouble free (compared to now) and clowning around like nobody's business. Our hair was long - mine was highlighted even - and we wore clothes that no self-respecting youth of today would be spotted in in public. It was also a time before we own mobile phones or digital cameras, before we learnt to drive, much less own a car. We were waiting for enlistment and had lots of time to kill.
But more than all this, that was a photo that bears proof of the friendship we once shared, before we each went our very different way, until today when one of us was going to embark on another different stage in life.
I have nearly forgotten about the photo - until it appeared on the big screen, right before nearly 400 guests. It caught me there.
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