Khmer Wedding

Wedding Venue

Yesterday, I attended my first Khmer Wedding. And by attended, I mean I was a guest at the dinner, which is a very small part of the wedding. I still don't know all the details of what happens at a wedding, but I do know that the ceremonies start for close family and friends the evening, then begin again the next morning with a fruit procession prior to breakfast. There are other ceremonies throughout the day, up until dinner, which is the part that most of the guests (normally numbering around 200 people) are invited to, which is followed by dancing. All these events include several outfit changes for the bride, groom, bridal party, and close relatives. While I do hope to attend more part of weddings in the future, I did enjoy just attending the dinner reception for my Rep's sister.

At the wedding with some of the MCC Staff

Khmer weddings are not only long affaires, they are also very formal- especially for women. Men can get away with just dress shirts or traditional style silk shirts, slacks, and dress shoes (no ties necessary), but women go all out. Many female guests go to the salon to have their hair and make-up done professionally, including up-dos, fake eyelashes,and lots of powder. Dresses are extremely formal. Wedding guest attire for women ranges from traditional (or modernized traditional) style blouses and silk skirts, to extremely formal (and often slightly gaudy) gowns, to western style short dresses. These dresses are often either made specially for the wearer by a tailor, or are hand made at a market and tailored to fit.

Posing with MCC Staff

Since it was my first wedding, and I've been warned that I will probably attend many over the next 2.5 years, I bought myself a locally made gown. One of the other MCC Service Workers kindly accompanied me, and we walked around one of the markets for a few hours looking at and trying on dresses, until I circled back around to one of the first ones I tried on. I considered getting my hair and makeup done, but I decided just to do it myself- especially since not much can be done to dress up my hair as short as it is.

Inside the wedding venue

I arrived at the wedding, which was held in a fancy tent on the street in front of property owned up the family, by tuktuk with some of the other Service Workers around 5:30pm. We were greeted by the bridal party and other members of the family at the entrance, which was also set up for formal photography. We then found a table and waited for the other MCC staff who were attending, as well as some representatives from our partner organizations, to arrive.

Dinner at the wedding

Once our table was full, we were served our 7 course meal. Each guest had a glass, a plate, a bowl, chopsticks, and a soup spoon. The food was placed on a turntable and we each served ourselves by picking what we wanted up with our chopsticks. I am still not very adapt with chopsticks (ok, fine, about all I can manage to eat with them is noodle soup) so I tried to be patient with myself. The meal included cashews, fish, duck, noodle salad with shrimp, and several other mostly meat dishes- the last dish before desert though was the obligatory rice. While we were eating a band played for us.

Our table spent some time chatting after we finished eating, but we soon all decided that we were not going to stay for dancing- we all had to work the next morning. So we gave the family our wedding presents (envelopes with money, as is expected), took pictures with the bride and groom, took some more group pictures, and then were on our way. The other Service Workers and I were give a ride to the MCC office by some friends, and then drove our motos home- which was a feat in my gown.