And so it came to pass that we awoke at 5am to get ready to go to the wedding of one of my wife's school friends an hours drive away at the back end of Nonthaburi, ready for a 7.09am start.......
Arrival at The Emerald Studios and the wife just has to get an early photo in!
If you are going to ask why the bride on the invitation is white and blond, and the groom has a beard, Don't. I have no idea!! but they are really nicely designed, cute invitations.
Let's start with a couple of things about Thai weddings. Firstly, as you can see from the invitation card above, they are not furnished with the name of the recipient. This is because there is no traditional guest list as we would create in the UK. They are simply handed out to friends and family. Anyone else who wants to turn up does so.
Doesn't this play havoc with the catering?
Hell yes. At my own wedding, I actually went out in the car half-way through the day to pick up an extra case of whiskey.
The second things is, the wedding is simply a celebration. There is no legality involved. To be legally married one simply turns up at the local council office with your ID cards, a couple of witnesses and 300baht (£7 GBP, $10 USD) and an extra 40baht for the pair of certificates. (Slightly more complex if there is a foreigner involved but that's for another day.) You sign the book, the registrar stamps loads of things and does some photocopying and away you go. Married.
Divorce is just as easy, but again, that's also a story for another day!
The other big thing is that the format always seems to slightly differ. Nearly everyone has a wedding planner and an MC or family elder to run proceedings and so this complicated and seemingly haphazard day does, at least in theory, have some sort of running order!
The celebration takes place at a wedding venue or at a hotel, in this case, the Emerald Studio in Nonthaburi. Traditionally, it would beat the bride's home but this is 2019 and no one lives at their parent's house anymore but the old traditions are still performed, replicated by the layout of the wedding studio. The time and date? Decided by a numerology soothsayer or monk with connections to the bride's mother. It is deemed to be lucky. That's a matter of opinion!
Generally, the format is as follows:-
Early morning, there are incantations by Monks which bless the couple and this is the only part of the day that is religious in any way. The number of Monks is important, it has to be an odd number, no less than 3 and no more than 9 and the couple supply them with a meal so as to 'make merit'.
You may notice that the monks have their faces covered by what look like giant lollipops. Nope. I have no idea why about that too!
Some guests show up for this part of the day, others drift in as the whiskey gets opened!
So then there is the procession, where chosen friends of the groom (myself included) escort the groom to the brides 'house'. In this case, stand outside on the road then walk up the drive into the wedding studio! Led by two of his closest friends carrying branches of a banana tree....seriously! and the other friends carrying assorted gifts (in my case, apples - one of the least important things to carry!), they make their way to the bride, having to pass her friends, trying to stop him with thin chains to which he must satisfactorily answer questions about his intentions, and hand out envelopes of real money to get past. There is a lot of cash involved in a Thai wedding one way or another!
After the monks are fed, the bridesmaids are bribed and the lone sweaty, red-faced foreigner has cooled off inside, there is a short break. In this case, tea and coffee were served and a few pastries.
Then we get onto the actual ceremony and the couple spends 30 minutes to an hour on their knees in front of parents, elders and other important people, wai-ing and generally bowing and kowtowing to them. The parents, in turn, fasten their heads together with a piece of string, wrap cotton around their wrists and all the other guests queue up to drip water on them. During this part of proceedings is sinsot time (dowry, paid by the groom to the bride) where all the nosey people look at the tray of cash and gold and try and work out how much the groom is paying!
The cash on the tray has to be clean, crisp, new notes and so the couple need to book the money in advance from the bank and collect it before the wedding to ensure they are freshly minted notes!
The sinsot was traditionally given to the bride's parents in days of old, but generally these days, the parents give most of it back to the couple although the sinsot negotiations are still an important part of the process as it has to be discussed and agreed upon when the bride and groom first visit her parents to inform them of their decision to marry.
At some point during this, the couple becomes 'married', god knows when exactly.......
Off to the bedroom........
and the main protagonists and their elders move on to the bedroom. Behave yourselves!!
In this case, a room at the studio where they are made to lay on the bed while elders and parents give them advice.
You're joking right?
No. I am genuinely not making this up. This is not fake news. I've done this! The problem was, my day passed in a blur of being told where to stand or kneel next and forcing a smile for the photographers and so I had absolutely no idea of what happened until I saw someone else's wedding from start to finish.
While they are in the bedroom, everyone else just milled around and looked at the wedding photos, talking of which. At this wedding we had two official photographers, a videographer and not one but two drones. One big one for outside footage and one little one which buzzed around inside and I almost became religious as I prayed for it to crash land into the buffet.....
The other thing about Thai weddings is that wedding photos are taken before the wedding!! The pre-wedding photos involve a trip somewhere photogenic with a photographer and make-up artist or two to take a set of pictures to display at the wedding itself. This day usually involves many changes of clothing including in my wife's case, two wedding dresses; the traditional and the modern, western style. There is also often a video made too either during the pre-wedding photo or on another date before the wedding. In this case, the couple had a cartoon video made which is shown as everyone sits down to eat.
The cartoon video told the story of their relationship!
The large hall for the meal and drinks is set up with round tables, ten to a table to eat Chinese style and has a stage and is very highly decorated. A fake cake sits to the right of the stage ready for the ceremonial cutting of the cake which came after the meal.
The meal itself consisted of a number of courses, brought to the table one at a time and shared by the guests sitting around it. Luckily for us, we had a couple of no-shows so we got a bit extra! Today, we had mainly fish based courses and almost all fried. As a non-seafood eater, I just went mad on the fried rice and picked out the prawns......as you do ;-)
As you can see, each table also had a bottle of whiskey, ice and mixers, and for the non-drinkers......Pepsi!
The groomsmen and bridesmaids went off to get changed into their less formal wear and then formed an avenue for the bride and groom to walk down towards the stage where there were more speeches and thank-yous, and the 'cake' was cut. Representing the cake, each of us got a blue and gold coloured cupcake. Sadly I have no photo of this as by this time I was famished and ate it.
The stage was set and played a slide show of the happy couple's pre-wedding photos as an avenue was formed by the groomsmen and bridesmaids, after changing into their more informal attire, whilst some guests played on their phones......
Then the bubble machine, which is a legal requirement at any Thai wedding, went into overdrive and filled the hall with millions of bubbles and after the romantic background music had reached a frenzied crescendo, the lights came up and as it was approaching 2 pm, the scheduled end time, a number of people increased their drinking rate and settled down as the staff feverishly started clearing up.
Sometimes there is also an evening reception too, but in this case, the couple decided to go all-in with the day do. Hardly surprising as the costs are astronomical. In their case, there will have been a package price for the day and that's on top of the pre-wedding photos, clothing, dresses and gifts. It seems to me that many 'middle class' Thais are waiting longer to get married, I'd assume to save up for the wedding. I do how much it cost, but I'm not going to post it here! DM me if you are genuinely interested!
Ahhh, I nearly forgot. Wedding gifts. Wedding gifts are in the form of cash which you put in an envelope and deposit in 'the box' which stands on a table as you enter. What was amazing to see again was that QR code which is appearing everywhere in Thailand which allows you to do instant transfers from your phone. The idea behind the cash gifts is it goes some way to paying towards the cost of the event, but from my own experience know that it generally doesn't!
Stories abound of couples ripping open their envelopes in a side room directly after their big day to pay the bill for the event which is presented to them before they leave and which must be paid before they are allowed to leave.
The most important 'prop' of the day!
Waraporn and Pitchayot are a lovely couple and from seeing their big smiles, obviously had an amazing day. It was, after all, their day and I was honoured to be a part of it.
It's interesting to see how Thailand mixes its own traditions with external influences to create their own style and it's so different, but at the same time, so familiar to a foreign observer such as myself. Thai weddings still remind me though, of being on a movie, or TV drama set with the lights, cameras and makeup people rushing around, touching everything up and keeping things as perfect as possible! The devil is in the detail.
The wife still has a number of school friends, all now in their lates 30's who are yet to get married and the next one is back home in Songkhla in May. Brave souls. For marrying on home soil in such a close-knit small city is bound to bring a lot of guests to the fray. An awful lot of guests!!
To Waraporn and Pitchayot. Best wishes to you both and thank you for inviting me to share your special day. Your smiles were priceless.
OK, a few footnote photos. I mentioned above that it was like being on a filmset, and here's why! Note also that there are a couple of other 'sets' at this venue depending upon what it is exactly you want. If you want to get married here, I put the location on #steemitworldmap
The prop department!
Lights. Camera. Action!
Interviewing the guests!
Backstage and a lifeless drone ready to soar into the sky!
