Wedding Blog
We had a second Vietnamese reception the day after our “American” style wedding at a Vietnamese restaurant for approximately 300-350 guests. We had to have a second reception due to the capacity constraints of our first venue, and other more “complex” issues (i.e. older guests not being happy with non-Asian cuisine and not being able to invite the cousin of a cousin of a friend of a cousin-twice-removed that I’ve never met or heard of… you get the idea).
Zander’s House before all of the guests arrived - we had formal portraits taken to be displayed at the Asian reception as pictured here. We re-used our hydrangea pomanders and butterfly garlands from the ceremony the day before. We had minimal decor this day, as we had to use the lazy susans that the restaurant provided - we had small low centerpieces which are weirdly not pictured in ANY photos we have. The guests removed them as they started arriving and then took them all home at the end of the night - now that I think about it, I don’t think I even saw ONE arrangement the whole night other than when they were all lined up at the bar.
Hanging out waiting to receive guests
An example of one of the guest photos - these were later printed out and put into personalized thank-you cards that matched our invitation set from Vietnam, and mailed out to each of the guests that came.
Staying hydrated - taking pictures is hard work!
Our sign-in / guest table manned by my cousin and a family friend’s daughter
Joking around before the reception begins…
About to be announced!
The family by the stage
Overall tone of the reception - lots of eating and lots of toasting. About 8-10 courses of food and several cases of alcohol.
Taking part in the aforementioned activities
The live band my mother hired. They weren’t as bad as some others I’ve seen - at least the lead singer of this band was fully-clothed and no Christmas songs were sung in July. Oh yes - that really does happen.
Time to “Greet the tables” as is tradition - the bride and groom along with the parents must go to each individual table of guests to receive their guests, blessings, words of good advice, and monetary gifts (we had to go to around 32 tables or so! by the time we got to many tables, guests were already starting to leave and/or were ‘enjoying’ themselves a lot if you know what I mean).
Most tables made us (mostly the hubs and/or my daddy) drink/toast with them (mind you, they are toasting with cognac NOT champagne). You can watch the hubs’s face slowly but surely change color from picture to picture as the night went on….
Some tables made us play games for our gifts - this game consisted of the hubs getting blindfolded and having to identify my hand out of a group of hands (one person even put a roasted quail leg in his hand! lol)
He was quite stumped and down to two pairs (mine and the lady in blue) - turns out he was cheating by feeling for jewelry!
I asked the best man to go discreetly pour the hubs a glass with coke and sprint mixed together so it looked like “fake cognac” to fool the guests, but little did I know the best man was in on the plan to get the hubs trashed - he poured the glass full of cognac with a splash of coke! >:O)
Receiving more advice and well wishes for lots of kids (boys first) and a thousand years of happiness.
Time for the last quick change of the night for cake cutting and dancing
(the cake that a rainbow threw-up on)
The hubs is barely able to stand up on his own at this point…
Serving cake to our parents
First dance - more like sway since the hubs’s coordination wasn’t exactly normal 
Dancing with my new little cousin, Chase - he was such a dancing machine!
The dance floor at the end of the night!
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pretty cool that you had a lot of dancing too! most chinese/vietnamese weddings i’ve been to haven’t had that… just karaoke.
I love that you say it was the cake that a rainbow threw up on! You sound good-natured about your husband’s state of intoxication - hope he didn’t have too bad of a hangover, poor guy.
That’s looks like a great second reception! I haven’t tried Zander’s, was the food good? Also, who did your formal pictures?
Awww… I love the table greetings— your honey must’ve been hammered! But those little envelopes make up for it, huh?
“Cake that a rainbow threw up on” is HILARIOUS.
Zander’s look huge in your picture….I didn’t know they could do weddings that big there. Love their food.
May - the food was pretty good - the carpaccio and the salt and pepper squid is a must in my opinion! 
the other courses were ehh and tasted a lot better at our initial tasting. As for the formal pictures, my dad’s cousin who does photography for fun took them for us, as I didn’t want to spend more money hiring a professional for the second reception
Annie - Oh yes… he was definitely drunk, but I was ok with it since in my mind, we already had the perfect wedding the day before!
Kimberly - yep - they can hold up to 350 I believe - it worked out pretty good - they just moved 3-4 of the extra tables we added to the dance floor area after the dinner was over and some guests left to make room for the dance floor
this was SO funny to read :) wow toasting with cognac! did you have a videographer for this reception?
annie - nope! my uncle just brought his sony handycam and followed us around during the reception! 
I did a double take on the wedding cake
I love the hydrangea pomanders. Where did you get them from? If you mentioned them in previous post. I must have missed them. Your 2nd reception looked like lots of yummy food and loads of fun. Congrats!!!
Joy - I made them myself! Thank you!
Who did your parents hire as your band?
Getting married in November…tough to find good bands without recommendations.
I am currently planning my wedding and getting into fights with my Vietnamese mom about the Vietnamese reception. I was wondering if your mom was totally cool with the double wedding? Did all your American-wedding guests go to the second reception? and did everyone wear the same outfits again? thanks so much. It’s nice to see other people here who might have gone through the same planning situations.
@Nellie:
Hi Nellie,
It’s definitely common - just about everyone that i’ve talked to had some kind of complication or another during teh whole wedding planning process with a Viet mom at first she was complaining a lot about wasting money on a second American reception, but in the end, everything turned out great - just stand your ground! if something is important to you, go for it!
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Mrs. Plum, Dallas
Age and Occupation in 06: 22, Accountant by day/Floral and Event Designer by night and weekends
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Security Admin
Engagement Date: December 31, 2004
Wedding Date: June 29, 2007
Venue: Marie Gabrielle Restaurant and Gardens
About Me: I have been engaged for about two years now - yes, a long engagement, because my fiance and I wanted to wait until I graduated college, which I did this past summer! He proposed after dating just two months - crazy, I know, but 2 years later, here we are, still crazy in love :-). We are having not one, but TWO weddings and TWO receptions in one weekend - American-style and Vietnamese-style - in Dallas, Texas, where I was born and raised!
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