Trip 3 - The Wedding Photos

I've been kind of slow with posting because we have been busy. On the 23rd Xin Jiao and I went to have wedding photos taken.  It took us 6 hours.  Aaarrrggg!!!!! 

Xin Jiao spent two of those hours in makeup and when they finished all I could say was WOW!!!!!!   She looked fantastic.  Of course they already had great looks to work with but really... she looked fantastic.  One of the women who did the makeup said she was really easy to do and the results were muy bueno.  (my translation.)

If they had spent two hours with me I still would have needed help with makeup. Needless to say they could have taken the pictures without me.  I look so much like my father in these pictures it makes me...  well...  look like my father.

They made me wear clothing for a very tall and a very fat Chinese man.  I told the photographer that I wasn't fat like a fat Chinese man but that I was a large American man with a middle aged spread.  All he did was laugh and say something in Chinese.  I think he said that I was fat.

The clothes didn't fit well at all.  There were areas in the clothes that I couldn't fill.  The end result is that the clothes sagged and we made out best attempt at hiding them.

The had to sew me into the shirts because my neck was way too large for the shirts.  It was very uncomfortable.  Then the last guy to wear them had a odor problem.  The clothes had been dry cleaned but they still smelled. 

Then the shoes?  Well forget it.  Once I got the toes in I had to smash down the back of the heals because they were about an inch too short so my feet were uncomfortable.  My toes were so wedge in the shoe that I think I lost the feeling in them 30 minutes into the first session and I'm not completely sure it has come back.

Then there was the photo session.  Since I am a full head taller than Xin Jiao and the photographer thought it was too much, he found unusual ways for me to stand so that I was just slightly taller than her.  I had to be a contortionist.  I would stand on one leg, bend the knee and had to stand at an angle so that you could not tell that the knee was bent.  Then the other leg was behind Xin Jiao at a slant bringing me down even further.  Then I bent over at the waist, kept my back straight and looked up to match the pitch of her head and I did all of that for 4 hours.  That blank photographer kept giving me motions to keep my back straight with my butt out.

Now, I am not really what you would call a drinking man but after that I downed a couple of Bud's.  Yes they have Budweiser in China but I had to drink it warm but at that point I didn't care.

But I have to say all in all the pictures came out pretty good; especially Xin Jiao.

I did have some fun.  I picked on and joked with and made faces at the photographer and made him laugh throughout the whole session.  I would kiss Xin Jiao just as the photographer was about to take the picture which meant that we had to do it over.  One of the things that would crack him up was that he would show Xin Jiao how to hold her frame or hands in a gentle female manner and I would do it too.  A couple of times he told her, "look like your husband."