Doubly Happy Too: 愛-Vey! Door Games

Hey, hive! {Insert embarrassed wave.} Remember me? My name is Mrs. Hot Cocoa, and I used to blog here. {Insert embarrassed grimace face.} I've been slacking off a bit, but now I'm back and ready to continue recapping. For real. {Putting on serious blogging face.}

Let's see . . . when I last left off, Team 愛-Vey and I had just finished getting prettified. With our game faces on, it was time for . . . well, game time.

In our room, Hottest Sister Cocoa, the head gamesmistress, pulled the ladies together for one last strategy session. Meanwhile, in the groom's room, Mr. HC and his team listened intently as my Uncle Robert schooled them on the awful fate that awaited them.

Some were scared.

Some, like my poor groom, were very very scared.

As they should have been.

Hottest Sister Cocoa and her tricky band of gamesmistresses had been scheming of ways to test their mettle for months. My sister loves Chinese traditions almost as much as I love testing, combining, and tweaking them, and among her favorite traditions of all time is the door games -- the challenges that a Chinese groom must complete before he is allowed to marry his bride.

At the designated hour of 2 pm, there was a nervous tap on the door of the bridal suite.

"What do you want?" queried a coy Hottest Sister Cocoa.

"The bride," replied groomswoman and head negotiator, Ilo.

"That'll cost you $999,999.99," said my team. (Nine, btw, is an auspicious number in Chinese, signifying long life.)

Ilo started with a low-ball offer of 99 cents.

Friend-of-honor Alisa tried to shut the door in her face.

Ilo bumped up the offer to $9.99.

"What am I?" I shouted from bedroom, where I was hiding. "Chopped liver?"

"$99.99?"

Denied. My bridesmaids were tough negotiators.

After some haggling, Mr. HC finally gained entrance with $999.99. A bargain, if I do say so myself.

But gaining entrance is one thing, leaving with the bride another.

Hottest Sister Cocoa began by explaining that it's the responsibility of the bridesmaids to confirm that Mr. HC is worthy of his bride before allowing him to proceed.

Their first task? Look sexy for the bride. Each groomsman and Mr. HC dutifully put their, um, assets on display by slipping into animal g-strings. Mr. HC drew the giraffe g-string.

Rrrroar.

The sight of Mr. HC and his very upstanding group of friends -- a poet, a doctor, a prosecutor, and a historian among them -- in their sassy underthings sent me into conniptions.

Next, the ladies asked Mr. HC a series of questions to test his compatibility with, and knowledge of, his bride.

"Who is the designer of Miss HC's wedding dress? Spell the name." Mr. HC had no idea, but his best man, a Weddingbee reader (!), knew the answer: "Monique Lhuillier."

Friend-of-honor Bec read a passage from a law review article, prefacing it with the question: "Which legal theorist wrote the following?" Mr. HC guessed Foucault. His groomspeople came up with every legal theorist they could think of. (All 2 of them!)

For failing to get the right answer -- Miss HC herself -- they had to do pushups. Team 愛-Vey, apparently not very sympathetic to their plight, laughed.

Among other physical tasks, Mr. HC had to prove his ingenuity and fitness by demonstrating how he would ride his bike to pick up his bride.

He then had to prove that he could keep his wife entertained by leading his groomsmen in an a cappella version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." To make it extra entertaining, they bopped up and down like a nerd chorus line. And the animal g-strings bopped with them.

Finally, Mr. HC had to prove that he was compatible with Miss "Haute" Cocoa by sashaying down a makeshift catwalk in silver high heels. Ferocia Coutura he is not.

What I loved about the door games is that not only did we integrate a longstanding Chinese tradition into our wedding, we also kicked off the "official" wedding day with a lot of laughter.