Entertainment
Tiffany and Ben’s Joyful Weddings in Brooklyn and Kuala Lumpur
Cup of Jo reader Tiffany Weger-Wong always wanted to have two weddings. “I’m Malaysian Chinese American, and grew up in Queens, New York, where my mom still lives,” she told us. “My dad and extended family are in Malaysia. I always loved going back to visit, because I have so many aunties, uncles, and cousins — my mom has nine siblings!” Tiffany knew it wouldn’t be possible for her many relatives to make the 10,000-mile trip from Kuala Lumpur to New York. But it was important to her, and her now-husband Ben, that both their families be a part of their wedding. The only solution? Have two.
You might remember Tiffany from her post-proposal donut photo. Now, she takes us through both of her beautiful wedding days…
“Ben and I met on a dating app, at the height of the pandemic. I was living with my mom in Queens, and he was in the Bronx, and we went on 10 Zoom dates over the course of two months. He wore a suit for the first one, which I thought was hilarious. After the vaccines rolled out, we finally met in person, and two years later, we got engaged.”
“We had our first wedding in 2024, at a restaurant in Brooklyn called Rule Of Thirds. My dad came from Malaysia, with a few relatives who were able to make the trip. Ben is Jewish, so we wanted to incorporate the traditions his family loves. Ben smashed the glass, and we had a beautiful challah that his stepfather cut after the ceremony. We also signed a ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract, which we composed together. We now have it hanging above our bed.”
“Hosting a tea ceremony is a big Chinese wedding custom, to honor your elders. There’s a very specific order to it, and it can take a while. We didn’t realize just how long, so it got very quiet, and at one point, Ben’s little nephew burst out, ‘When is it gonna be over?’ which was really funny.”
“After the tea ceremony, the bride and groom are supposed to give red envelopes with money to their younger siblings — which neither of us has. So, Ben gave envelopes to his niece and nephew, and I gave one to my younger cousin, who’s like a sister to me.”
“We found this plain arch on Facebook Marketplace, then decorated it ourselves. We hung Ben’s grandfather’s tallit (prayer shawl) over it, because Ben’s grandparents are no longer alive. It felt really meaningful to have them up there with us in this way.”
“There’s a famous Chinese cover of the Cranberries song, Dreams, by Faye Wong. I love both versions, but that’s the one I grew up with. When Ben and I first started dating, we made each other playlists, and he put that cover on his! We chose it as our recessional song. The DJ played it right as we kissed — it felt like fireworks.”
“I think the hora was my favorite part. It was just so exciting. Our moms were both screaming their heads off, but they had so much fun — everyone did.”
PART TWO
One year later, Ben and Tiffany flew to Kuala Lumpur, for wedding number two…
“In Malaysia, before doing anything else, my mom and I had to go to a Buddhist temple and talk to a priest, so he could give us auspicious dates for the event. We gave him our names, our birthdays, and our times of birth, and he gave us the date of June 14th. My whole family pitched to help — one of my aunts hosted us at her house and threw the welcome dinner, and another aunt hemmed my dress and found Ben his wedding clothes. When I think of everything they did for us, it makes me cry.”
“Ben and I wore traditional wedding clothes for the first part of the day — a ma kua for him and a kua for me. They’re a bit complicated to put on, but they’re so beautiful and intricate. The whole idea is ‘more is more.’ You want to do it up — gold everything.”
“There’s a tradition called ‘gatecrashing,’ where the groom and his groomsmen (and groomswoman, in our case) come to pick up the bride, and the bridesmaids put them through a series of challenging games in order to ‘win’ her. Like eating rice balls full of wasabi or doing Chinese calligraphy. And if they don’t complete a task, they have to pay the bridesmaids (literally!).”
“You’re supposed to be kind of obnoxious about it, too. I told my American friends, ‘Just follow my cousins. You’ll see — they will demand money.’ It’s a real performance. The groomsmen will be like, ‘Oh, we’re out of cash!’ and the bridesmaids go, ‘No problem, we take Venmo! We take USD! Pay up!’”
“One of the tasks was this really complicated yoga pose. Keep in mind, it was 95 degrees outside. I was upstairs in an air-conditioned bedroom, watching on FaceTime.”
“Finally, the groom comes to proclaim his love to the bride through the closed door. I assumed Ben was going to just say the English version of the standard Chinese script, but he surprised me by writing his own personal speech, and getting one of my relatives to help him translate it into a dialect that my family speaks, called Hakka. I was shocked, and so touched, because it’s not an easy language to learn. Everyone was cheering, and I just burst into sobs.”
“After the gatecrashing, we prayed at the shrine in my aunt’s home, and then had the tea ceremony. The Brooklyn one had seemed long at the time, but it was actually quite short by comparison. We served tea to all my aunts, uncles, and older cousins, and gave red envelopes to all the younger ones.”
“The final piece of ceremony is the bride leaving her childhood home to join her husband’s. We did the send-off part, for the sake of tradition. My mom put me in the car and started crying as though I was actually leaving — even though in reality, my cousin was just driving us around the block. I was like, ‘Mom, I’ll see you in five minutes!’”
“The second half of the day is the wedding banquet. We had it at a beautiful local restaurant. Chinese weddings are all about the food. You don’t really have dancing and toasts like you do in America. It’s a big, eight-course meal, and you just want everyone to enjoy themselves.”
“This is almost all of my cousins. Believe it or not, I have more!”
“Couples don’t usually give a big speech, but I wanted to take the chance to tell my family how much this meant to me. Being a third-culture kid, I always felt a little out of place. My mom and I are the only ones in our family who don’t live in Malaysia, and so to have them not only embrace my husband with open arms, but also to be so involved — so excited to do this for us — gave me a sense of belonging. I can’t wait until Ben and I come back with our own children and give that to them, too.”
Thank you so much, Tiffany and Ben. We wish you so much happiness.
P.S. More wedding stories, including a City Hall wedding with sneakers and hilarious wedding-day bloopers.
(Brooklyn wedding photos by Carissa Joy. Malaysia wedding photos by Moments by Jeremy.)
Entertainment
The Best New Show Of The Year Is A Supernatural Comedy Horror On AppleTV
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The 2026 television season has been a little lackluster so far when it comes to original, new series. The Boroughs was a fun binge on Netflix, Margo’s Got Money Troubles was a good comedy, but nothing can compare to the surprising success of Widow’s Bay on AppleTV. It’s a horror comedy, which might be the hardest combination of genres to pull off, that plays out like Twin Peaks meets Parks and Recreation. No show will leave you laughing so hard in one episode, before traumatizing you in the next.
Widow’s Bay Is The Most Original Show In Years
That odd mix of shows makes sense since Widow’s Bay was created by Katie Dippold, a writer for Parks and Recreation. The series takes place in the island town of Widow’s Bay in New England when Mayor Tom (Matthew Rhys) decides to boost tourism to the small community. The catch is that the community, primarily Wyck (Stephen Root) believes the island is cursed.
It’s not a spoiler to say that yes, yes it is cursed, and yes, there are real horrors at work on the island. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is the dry humor and Matthew Rhys’ perfect facial expressions, as the town’s residents will deliver the most absurd lines with a perfectly straight face. If you vibed with the humor of Parks and Recreation, you know what you’re getting into with the odd residents of Widow’s Bay, especially Kate O’Flynn as Tom’s assistant, Patricia. There’s a sequence with her involving a shotgun that is destined to be a social media hit for years to come, and one of those moments that you’ll think, “I’d do the same thing.”
Slapstick Comedy, Horror, And Amazing Sight Gags
Before starting your binge of the first season, avoid as many spoilers as you can. Widow’s Bay sets up mysteries early on with the chained church bell, the strange basement room, a rolling fogbank, and, while it’s not a supernatural mystery, how many Diet Cokes can Town Hall employee Dale consume? His desk is filled to the brim with cans. That can’t be healthy.
Keep your eyes peeled while watching Widow’s Bay as the production team was heavily influenced by The Simpsons usage of sight gags. Some are called out with blatant shots, others exist in the background of a conversation, but put together, they make the town of Widow’s Bay an absurdist version of Twin Peaks.
No one had supernatural slapstick down on their 2026 Bingo card, but here we are. While Netflix pulled the plug on The Boroughs, Widow’s Bay has already been confirmed for a second season, which is good considering the stakes-raising season finale ends by revealing a whole new layer to the mystery of the island. We have a long wait until Season 2 premieres, giving you plenty of time to watch the show of the Summer, and you can still convince your friends you were a fan of Widow’s Bay before it was cool. ]
Widow’s Bay Season 1 is now streaming on AppleTV.
Entertainment
Don’t pay $199 for Windows 11 Pro when it’s currently just $13
TL;DR: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro is down to just $12.97, giving users an easy OS upgrade with advanced security, productivity tools, gaming features, and Copilot AI.
Some upgrades just feel right. This is one of them.
If your PC has been running a little sluggish or you’ve been meaning to bring your system up to speed, Windows 11 Pro is just $12.97 (reg. $199) — a rare, time-sensitive offer that rewards quick, savvy decisions.
Mashable Deals
This isn’t about chasing trends; it’s more about giving your computer the modern foundation it deserves. Windows 11 Pro brings a sleeker UI, better multitasking, and enhanced security — all in a one-time lifetime license.
Think of it as the difference between driving a reliable car and suddenly upgrading to one with a smarter dashboard, smoother handling, and built-in security features.
For professionals, creators, and power users, this upgrade also unlocks features like Hyper-V, Windows Sandbox, BitLocker encryption, and seamless Azure AD integration — tools that make a real difference when you’re working across projects or managing sensitive data.
And yes, Windows 11 comes with Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered assistant that can summarize pages, change settings, or even help you generate code on the fly. It’s like having a co-pilot (literally) inside your OS.
Mashable Deals
But you don’t need convincing — you already know a smart upgrade when you see one. Get Windows 11 Pro for just $12.97 (reg. $199).
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Entertainment
Gene Roddenberry Secretly Fixed Star Trek’s Earliest Plot Hole
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Star Trek is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Part of why that is so impressive is that this franchise has managed to maintain the same continuity for so many years. Sure, the Kelvinverse rebooted everything for a few movies, and we occasionally get glimpses of alternate universes with their own twisted history. But the main Trek timeline, from The Original Series through Starfleet Academy, has remained the same, which is an amazing creative achievement. But it also leads to something as annoying as it is inevitable: plot holes!
There are many seeming plot holes throughout the franchise. Heck, Starfleet Academy introduced more than its fair share in only one season. However, the earliest plothole goes back to William Shatner’s very first episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” This episode features a mock grave for James Tiberius Kirk that reads “James R. Kirk.” This weird screwup inspired decades of attempts by fans and creators to explain what happened. However, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a simple explanation from the very beginning. That is, the godlike character who created the tombstone was still fallible, meaning that this would be an in-universe screwup rather than a production error.
A Ghoulish Plot Hole
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” was actually the second pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It’s the episode that sold NBC on this new show, which isn’t surprising, because this is a great hour of television. Strange energy from the galactic barrier gives one of Captain Kirk’s best friends, Gary Mitchell, godlike powers. Those powers are getting stronger by the minute, so Kirk eventually has to make the difficult decision to kill his buddy in the name of keeping the entire ship (and quite possibly the entire galaxy) safe.
At one point, Mitchell uses his powers to summon a tombstone that reads “James R. Kirk.” It makes for a great threat, but there’s just one problem: the character’s name is James Tiberius Kirk. Incidentally, Gene Roddenberry seemingly knew Kirk’s middle name early on, even though it wasn’t officially revealed (outside of The Animated Series) until The Undiscovered Country. In the introduction to Star Trek: The Classic Episodes 1, Original Series writer D.C. Fontana claimed that once Roddenberry noticed the mistake, he came up with a quick and easy explanation. “Gary Mitchell had godlike powers, but at base he was human. He made a mistake.”
Powers Like A God, Mind Like A Human
Unfortunately, Roddenberry kept this plot hole explanation to himself. I say “unfortunately” because this mistake sent fans into a tizzy trying to explain the discrepancy. On top of that, various Star Trek writers tried their hands at providing explanations. One such explanation came from Michael Jan Friedman’s non-canonical My Brother’s Keeper series. In these books, when the future captain meets Gary Mitchell, he claims his middle name is “Racquetball.” Later, when Kirk steamrolls through a discussion, Mitchell says the man’s middle name should be “Rhinoceros.” Therefore, Friedman explained that the “James R. Kirk” on the tombstone is just an in-joke between former friends.
Additionally, the late, great Star Trek writer Peter David tried his hand at an explanation. In his novel Q-Squared, the events of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” take place in a parallel reality in which Kirk’s middle initial really is “R.” In this non-canonical book, we also find out that Mitchell’s powers came from briefly being possessed by Q, who had to pull himself together across all of time and space. Quick side note: while Marvel has really played out the concept of multiverses, Q-Squared is an amazing novel, and every Trek fan should read it at least once.
These writers did their best to explain where “James R. Kirk” came from. On top of this, fans have constantly debated this issue, all trying to one-up each other in coming up with a suitable explanation for this plothole. As it turns out, though, none of this debating and speculating was necessary because Gene Roddenberry had the perfect explanation ready. Namely, that having the power of a god isn’t the same as having the unlimited knowledge of a god. It’s short, it’s simple, and it’s effective. Most of all, it does what Star Trek has always done best: keep the sci-fi storytelling centered around humanity.
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