Wedding Season

There are weddings everywhere at the moment. Where ever we’ve cycled- through village, through city, through country side, even near Angkor. We’ve seen the same marquee pavilion strung with brightly entwined fabrics of pink, yellow, red and orange and, without fail, a major sound system expounding a mixture of temple music, Khmer pop, or hardcore techno.

Wedding organisers make good business here in Cambodia. Anyone and everyone uses the same wedding formula. And to be fair, aside from the speaker system it hasn’t changed much over time. There are also the other details like the entrance archway laden with plastic flowers. The columns of the arches are decorated with a large bunch of bananas spray painted gold on one arch and silver on the other.

Depending on the budget, the local photographer is hired for photo shoot sessions of the family which to be displayed on the day. These are displayed along side the entrance. A picture of the grooms parents is displayed on one side of the archway to indicate the groom’s side and the picture of the brides parents on the other side. The photos are both shocking and intriguing to me. The subjects’ pose with mannequin stillness, their ghostly white faces tilted ever so carefully to suggest a caring and graceful appreciation are prompted and practiced country wide.

Allow me to illustrate in more detail. These photo sessions always include a makeup and hair session to lacquer and lick the subjects into a glamour state worthy of the soap stardom. Hair is high, ringlets cascade to frame the face, and all the best jewelry is worn. Dresses and suits match in colours of pistachio green, tan, purple, to name a few popular choices we’ve seen so far. The dresses are decadently sequined with lashings of lace on satin. The finishing touch is the whitening powder dusted all over the couples’ face.

On many visits to family run restaurants in Cambodia, which is almost everywhere, Tom and I have had the pleasure of viewing these formal photos preserved on the wall for posterity.

The season is hectic and goes all through the cooler and dryer part of the year, from December to March, before the wet. ‘Springtime is wedding season’ as one local told us and despite the seasonal misnomer it really does feel like springtime here in the sub-tropics. Calves are wobbling around on new legs, young water buffalo are pink, grey and soft haired, devoid of the scar and callus of work; and grass is not yet scorched with direct rays of the dry season sun.

Springtime is wedding season and likely scheduled between rice planting and harvest. Does that mean the rest of the year is allocated to courtship and negotiation? A Cambodian man explained to us how the pressure is on for him to raise the money that allows him to propose to a Cambodian woman. It is the men who pay a dowry here to access the bride's family. He reckons that between $2,000 USD and $5,000 USD will support his proposal to a good family. Although, at the moment he is focused on raising the money. He can't start to court anyone until he does. The risk for him is if he meets a nice woman and gets attached but isn't ready to offer the right sized dowry he may lose the woman he is interested in. Although a great connection could emerge between them, if another better offer is made her parents may encourage her to accept the proposal, and parents are rarely disobeyed.

Unlike the western weddings, the courting groom's dowry is used to pay for the big day. As I described earlier, most weddings have a similar set up. But if you have the money you can invite more guests and no doubt provide more extravagant cuisine. If the money is available you can take your wedding to a special wedding venue, where everything is catered and provided for in a package.

Our Cambodian friend explains that while he could have to pay USD$5000 to propose to the right woman he is reluctant to spend too large an amount on a dowry. Not entirely because of the cost but because of the social consequences. A marriage to into a richer family means he could be set up with a business and job from her parents, however he believes that it could involve life long expenses as the potential bride may be accustomed to not working, or worse yet -spending.

While there are many social fine points to consider making the right marriage. It still seems like everyone is doing it. Not a day goes past when we don't hear first, then see the marquees being set up, pulled down or in the middle of use with people dressed in their finest, eating, drinking, giving speeches or sitting amidst thumping music blasting out to the surrounds for 48 hours.

In fact, marriage ceremonies and funeral ceremonies look almost exactly the same. Only the guests are older and there is the additional black and white fabric entwined amongst the orange and yellow instead of the usual red and pink. A gilded casket is set amongst the diners, beset with offerings and monks chanting prayers. Less formally celebrated but saturated in everyone's home, offices, villages and fields, are toddlers and babies. I have never seen so many under two's. It seems like Cambodia is in a baby boom. This isn't surprising since life has become more normal since this end of the 30 year civil war in the mid 90's.
Seeing marriages, births and deaths publicly and plentifully celebrated, drives a point home for me- That these sacred and mundane landmarks of life are a sign of security and progress here in Cambodia. Maybe, or maybe not.... Perhaps it's all about having as much 'effin fun as possible.