Wedding prop

So now to the wedding (see the last post). As I've told some of you one of my “goals” for my time in Cambodia has been to be invited to a wedding. Weddings are very big affairs here in Cambodia. They often go on for two to three days, there are traditional ceremonies, many people are invited and it is all accompanied by music which is amplified by many big speakers and can be heard in about a 10km radius. So even if you didn't have the honor to be invited you still have privilege to here every word spoken or sung, be it at 4 in the morning or 10 at night. All the women wear very colorful dresses that put those worn by Barbie in her computer-animated adventures (yeah the girls here love the movies and I've watched quite a few) to shame. As soon as the rainy season is over the wedding season starts as everybody tries to get married in the few dry cool months before the hot season starts. So it seems like there was at least one wedding a week in our area during those months, there was always music playing and you constantly saw glittering sparkling women zoom past on motos. After starting to despair on ever being invited my luck turned and I was invited to 3 and was able to go to two of them.

The first one was the wedding of one of our staff Sdeung. I was very happy when she invited me and almost equally excited about picking out my wardrobe for the event. She went to her village a few days before the occasion and I followed with two other staff, Khan and Sarouen (who lives in the same village as S'dung and at whose house we were to stay at), on the morning of the wedding. Sarouen's family seemed quite nice, but I had a bit of a difficult time when I asked where the toilet might be. I was told through sign language that there was no toilet, which didn't really surprise me, and so I asked where I could then do my business and they waved in the general direction of their backyard. Now this confused me, up to now there's always been some designated screened of area, but here there was nothing. I tried to ask again, where exactly I should go, and before I knew what was really happening I was on a moto on my way to some elderly man's house who had a bathroom. Needless to say by then the whole family (and probably the whole neighborhood) now knew that I had to pee.

After that we headed over to S'dung's house to watch the different ceremonies. There was a big tent set up with chairs under it for the family, loudspeakers and a small “band”, which played music during and in between the ceremonies. They were still preparing things when we arrived, so we said hi to S'dung (who was literally unrecognisable with all her makeup) and various family members and waited around for a while.



Me with the beautiful bride



I was also very surprised and happy to see Bo, one of our former staff (well actually she was officially working for the church but was staying at the orphanage) whose family I had visited during the water festival. After a short wait the groom (can't remember his name) and his three groomsmen then came down followed by the bride and her three bridesmaids.

















They were all arranged at the table and then the wedding took a definite non-western turn. A man with clown-like makeup on his face and a funny wig on came down (from the brides house by the way, which served as the hair and makeup department for the day),



and proceeded to conduct the ceremonies like a kind of musical comedic routine. I was quite surprised at this, but apparently it's like this at every wedding. He was later joined by a women and they sang and joked their way through the rest of the afternoon.









Mercilessly teasing a very shy groomsman





Getting one of the elders to dance





and giving her his wig to wear


 While it was quite interesting and at times funny (when I understood the jokes) to watch it was also rather difficult because it was really really hot by that time and of course there were no fans. After the main wedding ceremony was over,



this is what I took to be the Cambodian equivalent of the groom kissing the bride



S'dung went up to into the hair and makeup department to change into a new outfit for a new ceremony, and invited me to come and watch



The stylist of the day



Step 1: Getting her skirt pinned on



Step 2: Getting the sash pinned on




Step 3: the jewelry



Step 4: removal of the hair piece



Step 5: The new hair piece





Violà: the bride in what I think was the third out of six outfits for the day



The next ceremony was the “gift-giving” ceremony, all the relatives friends and family came into the front of the house that was all decorated for the event and presented their gifts (usually in the form of money in an envelope) to the bride and groom.



Me and Sarouen giving our gifts



We left after that and headed back to Sarouen's house where we got ready for the very formal evening part of the wedding. This also included taking a shower with only a length of material wrapped around me in front of the whole family (the well was in the middle of the yard), but I'd done it before and so I wasn't too embarrassed. After an hour or two we were all done up and ready to go.

When we got to S'dungs neighborhood we first stopped at Sarouen's grandmother's house. She was (and is) a very sweet lady who very energetically tried to hook me up with whom I believe was her grandson (nice but rather shy young man, stared at the ground for most of it).



Me with Sarouen's grandmother





Me and Sarouen



The whole atmosphere at the wedding had changed, while it had been more of an intimate family affair in the afternoon it was a full blown dinner party now. S'dung and her newly wed husband were standing at the entrance greeting all the guests.

Tables and chairs set up and waiters and waitresses walked around serving drinks and food.

 We ate our meal ( which was a bit of a challenge for me since it was chopsticks and I still wasn't very proficient at eating with them at that time), and afterward we helped clear the tables and the other staff helped serve food (considering how clumsy I can be at times I decided to refrain). It was photo shooting after that and I served as a prop for a few of them. There are now a number of young women in Cambodia who have a picture of them hugging (only the women have this one I just stood by the men) a foreigner whose name they don't even know. ;)



The whole gang





Me with Bo





Me as a prop





A very adorable little girl, one of Sdeung's relative's kid



After the photo shoot all the guests who were still there (most everybody besides family and close friends leaves right after the meal) changed into more modern “dancing” clothes and the table were moved away and the dancing began! However it was very unspectacular in the beginning it was just drunk guys and little kids.

 The staff started an infuriatingly annoying process in which one would say that we should dance and try to convince the others they'd talk about for a few minutes, then drop it, start up again 10 minutes later, decide to dance, get up walk two meters then turn around and sit back down, this basically went on ALL EVENING.



In between dancing



They asked me to dance with them and I felt like I owed it to the crowd (who had probably never seen a foreigner try to dance traditional folk dances) and so I went out and danced one of the traditional folk dances with them. Now this was the first time I had danced in public (it wasn't the last though) and so I was fairly petrified which never helps when you're trying to do anything that requires a certain extent of gracefulness. I was also wearing ridiculous heels and the ground was sand, meaning I sank down every other step. All of these factors contributed to the dance landing a rather high spot on my “most embarrassing experiences in Cambodia” list. I danced another dance for good measure and then said I wanted to sit down, thinking that I had done my duty the evening. I couldn't have been more wrong. I was repeatedly dragged to the dance floor, even after most of the guests had sat down or left. I started to get rather annoyed and was looking forward to going back to Sarouen's house and sleeping, this proved to also be a false hope. I should have noticed something was wrong when S'dung's mother kept asking me if I wanted to go up into their house to sleep, I was like “No, I'm just gonna wait until we go to Sarouen's house, it doesn't make any sense to sleep here for an hour or so and then be woken up”, I really should have noticed when S'dung told me I should take a shower, I was really confused, why would I want to take a shower here, I didn't even have a change of clothes! After a few more painfully confusing conversations I realized that, we were not going back to Sarouen's house but were sleeping here. All of us girls (including the bride, S'dung, which I guess is normal) slept up in the house, I actually slept quite well until I was awakened at a bit before 4 the next morning when it was time for S'dung to do her hair and makeup for the last ceremony. I was told that I could keep on sleeping in her next-door neighbor's house, so I staggered over there and completely slept through the ceremony. Sarouen however took some pictures of it.



Sdeung's youngest brother and sister



When I awoke everything was over, stuff was being packed up and after saying farewell and thank you we left too. It was a very interesting (in a good way) experíence, everybody in her family was very friendly and welcoming towards me, and I was really lucky as I was able to be there for many parts that usually just family sees. However I have decided that should I ever marry it will be a Western wedding ;).

Peace and Love

Sarah