Leah's Wedding Eve: { Hair Combing Ceremony }

The night before the wedding we combed Leah's hair so that she would be ready for her hairdresser in the morning.  Um.  Not true.  But that would be funny.

The hair combing ceremony is a Chinese custom that is still widely practiced.  We do it just for fun and for my mom to express her well wishes for the bride.  It's done by having a woman, in this case my mom, who has lived a blessed and happy life comb the bride's hair.  The woman recites a standard "poem" while she brushes the bride's hair and the poem expresses all the wishes that she has for the bride and her marriage.  In the olden days, and please don't quote me on this because I am certainly not a Chinese historian and don't pretend to be one either, unmarried Chinese girls wear their hair down while married women wear their hair up.  This ceremony is when they get that one dramatic change in their hairstyle for the rest of their lives so I guess it's pretty significant :)

We ended the night with some sweet rice dumplings which is symbolic of a complete and happy family.  And happy we were.

Rubbing Salt on Open Wounds

Pictures taken circa 2008

The above picture shows how happy Jake makes me.  I also decided to post it because I have never really posted pictures from all our wedding celebration in Hong Kong and I ask myself why-ever-not?  So there you have it.  We looked so young...

Leah is getting her endowment tomorrow at the Draper temple.  When I mentioned it to Jake a couple weeks ago and explained to him that I was planning on renting temple clothes, he reminded me to check and make sure that the Draper temple does rentals.  Well, I forgot all about it until tonight when my whole family were talking about the endowment.  All of us--my dad, my mom, my uncle, and I--were planning on renting temple clothing at the temple but they don't offer that service at Draper.  I freaked out and mentally slapped myself on the face 573 times while we were trying to figure out what to do.  Luckily, all of us were able to find someone who we could borrow clothing from.

I texted Jake sheepishly after the potential-heart-attack-inducing event and while I was waiting for the I told you so to appear on my screen, he texted back "Oh no!  I'm so sorry."

Believe it or not, in the four years of marriage and six years of being together, Jake has never said the phrase "I told you so" to me.  Not once.  Not because he has never been right about anything but because when he is right about something he lovingly chooses to not rub salt on my open wound.  He chooses to sympathize with me and to help me find a solution instead of stamping on me while he lifts himself up like so many of us do.  I love that about him and am ever so grateful for all the tenderness he puts into handling me and my feelings.  When I pointed it out to him that he has never uttered those words, he said "That would be terrible.  I can't say that to the woman I love."  Now those has to be the most romantic words I have ever heard in my life.