Gerel/Munji Wedding

Maybe I had the weird dream because I attended a wedding Friday night.


Gerel, Munji, Maral (their daughter), and Gerel's parents.

We hired Gerel at the same time we hired 4 other undergrads from USC. I specifically remember looking at her resume because it said she spoke Russian, Mongolian, and Korean in addition to English. Anyway, Gerel worked in cost accounting for about a year but had to quit since she did not get a H1B visa during the Great Lottery of 2007. Shortly after, she got married with Munji and had Maral but they never held a wedding ceremony. Now that they've decided to move back to Mongolia (they're both Mongolian), they organized a wedding ceremony/reception before he leaves this Sunday (today).

The wedding was held at Los Verdes Golf Course in Palos Verdes. I think there were ~100 people invited and I carpooled with a few people from work. The ceremony was conducted in English but there was a lot of Mongolian spoken. Since Gerel also speaks Korean, I kept asking Sunny whether they were speaking Korean... for some reason Sunny kept asking me if I understood, as if they were going to speak Mandarin. :)


Gerel, Munji, Solongo (Gerel's sister), and friends (I think they're all Mongolian)

The ceremony was also very simple. There was no wedding party (groomsmen or bridesmaids) and Maral was the flower girl. The reception was standard American fare with salad and choice of fish or chicken. The food was decent but the Koreans (Sunny and Christine) were hoping for a Korean buffet instead. They invited a professional singer that sang a few songs in English and Mongolian... for awhile I though there was going to be karaoke/noraebang but I guess that's only for Vietnamese wedding receptions.

Some more pictures:


First dance


Chicken!


Professional (we think) Mongolian singer. Most of the young female guests were wearing short skirts and really crazy high heels (~6"). Not sure how they walk or dance without falling over.


In addition to red/white wine, there was a bottle of Mongolian vodka at each table. I originally thought it was going to taste like baijiu but it was more like Russian vodka. Not sure if Mongolians are crazy drinkers like Russians or Koreans... probably, since it's freezing cold there.


Cake cutting/frosting smearing