Ho Chi Mama: Adventures of a VietMOM: For as long as we both shall live...

In fact I have absolutely no idea what the wedding vows entailed, but I do now know that a Vietnamese wedding is one serious entertainment spectacle. As we left the festivities in a taxi, Brianna turned to me and asked, "Would you say that was tacky?" I laughed and replied, "No. We're in Vietnam. It was just Vietnamese." What may be deemed "tacky" at home is, in reality, just plain fun.

Our friend, Amelie (the teacher at the French school), married her typhoon rescue hero, Hoang, on Sunday - this week's lucky wedding day. People in Vietnam wait for a lucky day to get married which explains why weddings are rarely on weekends. If you pass one wedding in the street, you can assume it's a lucky day, and you are likely to encounter a dozen more in your travels. Amelie and Hoang were doubly lucky because their lucky wedding day was on a weekend, and the 400 guests in attendance didn't have to rearrange work schedules to partake in the celebration.

And what a celebration it was. It began with drums and dancing dragons with glowing eyes. Next came singers, dancers, Vietnamese folk instruments, steam, candles, confetti, fireworks (I kid you not) and, naturally, karaoke. Every pause in the action on stage was filled with pounding rock music from the enormous speakers scattered throughout the restaurant. And then there was the food. Course after course of Vietnamese fare arrived at our table. I enjoyed a table with three adults and eight kids - guaranteeing lots of extra food for me. We began with a seafood salad. Next the rice soup arrived, followed by shrimp fried in a green rice batter and the requisite honorable chicken (head, claws and all). Then came the platter of beef and some sort of stew.

They've had enough.

With the kids begging to leave, music pounding in my ears, and my stomach full to bursting, we finally waddled away to assess the "tackiness" factor. It was like a festival, feast and wedding all wrapped into one. I'm not really even sure about the wedding part. There may have been some romantic exchange of vows at some point in the entertainment, but it was lost on me (possibly because the narration happened in Vietnamese, and the only word I understood was "thank you").

I was impressed. The kids were entertained and then just antsy. I'm thankful that we should have at least a good decade before any of them start planning weddings. Trying to compete with fireworks and dancing dragons sounds like a daunting task.