It is 6:30am and I am standing outside my fiancee’s house waiting for the nine monks to arrive. I am really excited that this is really happening. All the hard work and sweat from the last seven days to get everything ready for today is now worth it.

Yesterday was the busiest day. We both woke up very early to work on the last job, which was cleaning all three floors in the house. I really didn’t think it was necessary to clean the whole house, but we had no choice as Tai’s mum insisted. She said that there would be loads of her cousins coming and she didn’t want them to see any of the mess in the house.

It really would have taken us more than half a day to finish the work but luckily my grandmum came to help. Really she came to prepare things for the monks. On the morning of the wedding we would make merit by giving food to nine monks. So my grandmum had to set up mats and cushions, ceremonial bowls and the shrine.

After we had finished cleaning, my grandmum walked around the house checking everything. She even went into my bedroom and tried to clean things there. I told her that it wasn’t really necessary because no one is going to come into my bedroom. But she told me that the bedroom is one of the most important locations for the ceremony!

I gave her a really seriously confused face before she explained to me why. She said in the past, at the end of the day, the groom and the bride will have to go to the bedroom and lie on the bed which is full of rose petals. She said there would be someone taking pictures of us together and after that all the family members would leave the room. After the last person goes out, one of us has to get up to lock the door!

I laughed and asked her if that is really true. She said, “Yes, it is true”. She had a serious face so I stopped laughing. I had been to a few weddings with my parents when I was younger but I have never seen or heard about this part of the ceremony. I think that it would be really embarrassing for Tai and myself if we had to do it. I really hope that we don’t have to do that.

After everything was finished, my grandmum sat down with Tai’s mum and talked about the things that she would have to buy and prepare for the following day. It sounded like Tai’s mum had forgotten to buy quite a few things including the phaa wai, the clothes that the groom and the bride will give to the elders of each side when we pay them respect.

My grandmum said that Tai’s mum needed to buy silk pyjama trousers and old-style white shirts for men and sarongs for women. These would be used when we paid respect to the elders on my side of the family. Tai’s mum said she would go out to buy it later after my grandmum left. She asked us to go out with her.

After my grandmum had left to go home, the phone rang; it was Richard. We were planning on having the web cam for the wedding so that people around the world would be able to watch the ceremony. We talked for about five minutes and we decided that he would come straight away to set up the computer.

I quickly went upstairs with Tai to tell her mum about this. When we got there she said that she had to go out on urgent business. We nodded and then I told her about Richard. She said it’s good because she wasn’t ready to go and buy stuff anyway.

The day was already more than half-finished and there was still a lot to do. Come back next week to see if we finished everything on time!