My partner and I were invited to a wedding on a cruise ship yesterday, with approx. 200 other people attending.
To set the scene, the lucky lady is a chinese friend of my parter, so the expected attendees are expected to be travelling from all over – mainly Asia – China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore etc.. and a handful of westerners such as myself

So, to cut a long story short, and not to name and names *cough* “Chit Lin” *cough* I was told that the dress-code is smart-casual.
So not to question the somewhat unexpected dress-code, I didn’t bother checking the invitation and prepared a nice presentable smart-casual outfit to wear.

So the day came, we arrived at the meeting place in good time, and spotted a nice big stylish ship

… and big group of extremely smart-dressed wedding attendees, so we went and joined them.
There were so many stunning outfits there, I have to be honest and say, there’s not much you can do with a man’s suit, but the ladies’ outfits really were stunning.

This was a bit of an uncomfortable situation for me and my partner, as we were the only people to be seen NOT wearing a suit!
What can we do? we can’t just disappear and hope the bride and groom don’t spot us before we escape, that would be just rude. There’s no time to nip back home and get changed, so we tried our best not to stick out like a sore thumb and just hovered around outside the group before it’s time to board the cruise ship.

The time finally came, and we joined the others into the ship, and caught up with a couple of friends and family of the bride, and quite embarrassingly explained our excuses for the lack of “red carpet” dress code.
YES! that’s right, apparently,  the invitation card did state “dress-code: RED CARPET”!!! oops!

We spent a good part of an hour slowly exploring the harbour, it was so nice to take in the views like this. I haven’t had a chance to do this in Sydney up to now.

Of course, its the Sydney Opera House

Sydney skyline from a different angle than I’m used to seeing it

Sydney Habour Bridge. It’s a bit low-quality, but it’s from my phone

Oh well, with all the embarrassments finally over(at least with the people that we know) we continued to enjoy the ceremony, the dinner and the wedding speeches. Poor bride and groom, having to but up with all that embarrassment.

The Dining Hall on the ship
see how well all these people are dressed, no wonder I didn’t want a pic of myself in here

Please, when I get married, make sure your speeches are to a minimum, or you might find me trying to sneak under the table to find the nearest exit.

I have to say, our friend, the bride was stunning, the ship was great, the early trip around the harbour was so nice. It’s just a shame I spent half the time feeling like a wedding crasher.

Well, that’s my first experienced blogged online, stay tunes for the next thrilling installment from DiziMatt’s adventures