Cambodian Buddhist Wedding, Siem Reap

Me!

I've had a really strange and interesting couple of days which is not very easy to explain and not something that can be done without going into detail.

About four nights ago I went out to dinner with a couple of local people I'd met in Siem Reap, the dinner was a pre wedding party for a friends wedding the following day. I met the bride and groom and had dinner and chatted to everyone on the table. After a while, out of nowhere, I was asked if I would like to come to the wedding, but not just come to the wedding but to be one of three best men as one could not make it! As you can imagine I didn't feel comletely confortable but the tradition of having best men is different in Cambodia than in the west and not knowing the groom is apparently ok. Thinking this would be a really good experience and a chance to see something very different from the normal travelling stuff I accepted.

The Monks with the Bride and groom

What I didn't know at the time of agreeing was that the wedding would be over two days, I would have to change clothes about 7 times and day 2 would involve a 4:30am start.

We started the following morning at the brides relatives house with a rice, chicken, duck and fish breakfast before a traditional ceramony where the bride and groom get the guests to pretend to cut their hair, splash them with water, spray them with perfume then show them their reflection in a mini mirror. This was repeated about 15 times before we moved upstairs and sat down.

Bride with brides maides

At this point 5 monks came to join in the festivities where they chanted and blessed us all. For a finalle they splashed us all with water then threw flower buds all over the bride and groom which everone got involved in on... It was good fun. Food and drinks were presented to the monks before they left. They took all the food but left behind the pineapple fanta which I found odd because its quite a nice drink.

This lead into the evenings drinking and dinner celebrations. I did my best to get involved in eating alot of traditional Cambodian food, I found my poker face came in useful on a couple of occasions but I was very pleasently suprised how tasty the majority of it was. I did have to turn down the kind offer of a chickens throat and chickens feet. I got to bed about 1am.






One of the many clothes I had to wear

 

Day 2 started at 4:30am which was tough due to this early start. It involved putting on a suit and walking to a monestry with all the guests then walking back to the wedding. I was sooo tired this was all a bit of a blurr. After this the bride and groom had their hands tied together to show they were married. This was repeated by a large number of the guest and also some more prayers from the master of ceramonies. At about 10am this was over until the evening party which would be a sit down dinner and all the friends would be invited.

Brides maids

At the evening party I changed clothes again and was involved with the meet and greet on the door for 2 hours, after 1 hour, I changed clothes then an hour later I changed clothes for the final time where I was excused from my duties on the door and went to enjoy the party. There was about 450 guests and free beer. A tradition in Cambodia is when you finish the drink you throw your empty bottle under the table. I took a photo of this which is shown in the attached album.

At the wedding

The party was live music; unfortunately there were no proclaimers or bon jovi but traditional Cambodian music sung by I’ve singers. It was very similar to the bus karaoke but better after several drinks.

Overall it was a surreal but great couple of days. I’ve added some more great photos of some really good costumes. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it to Sihanoukville due to a lack of time but as I'll be close to whilst in Vietnam I'll go back another time. Got a few more thinks to see and do here so will stay in Siem Reap until Monday when I go to Ho Chi Minh City.