The Wedding

Around 8am Sunday morning we (Jack included) walked down the street to Pak Gandung’s parent’s house. Already, there were many people there talking and eating breakfast. Their breakfast however is a bit different than ours. They were serving rice, baked chicken, vegetables with Sambal (their hot sauce), boiled eggs and assorted fruit. Not exactly what we are used to eating first thing in the morning but we tried a bit, so as to be polite, afterall, this was a very special occasion. Once everyone was finished eating, 3 taxi vans came and everyone loaded in for the 45 minute ride to the town of Boyolali. This would be our first outing with all Indonesians!! I was a bit nervous!

When we arrived at the place where the wedding would be held, there were large canopy’s covering the road and “yards” of several houses. I put yards in quotation marks because they are really just dirt. There were already about 250 people there sitting on plastic chairs that had been rented for the occasion. Scattered throughout the groups of chairs were tables with glasses of hot tea on them and boxes of snack foods to be handed out later to the guests. Here when you hold a meeting or event, food is always a part and not just at the end; all throughout the meeting! Joel walked in with one of the men from our kampung (neighborhood) and I with a lady and we each sat in our respective places; men with men, women with women. Jack joined the women and children of course! All together, we have estimated that around 300 people were there.

And there were more people arriving all throughout the wedding. Rubber time is a favored idiom here! While we waited, there was a semi-tradition Javanese band playing music. The style is called Krocangan. It’s similer to Gemelan which is the style of music that Indonesia is world-renowned for. While Gemelan has a large, many pieced orchestra, the music here was primarally played on a keyboard with several smaller drums accompanying it. Different and pretty cool.

After about 45 minutes of waiting, the procession, led by the brides father and mother, came out. The bride was accompanied by about 6 attendants as well as two little girls who I think were holding small fans. Very royal. The whole ceremony was patterned after the traditional Javanese wedding which comes from the old Kingdoms of Java. Check out Java on Wikipedia for more info.

Soon, the groom's procession came out and he was also accompanied by 4-6 attendants, all of whom wore the mystical Keris (pronounced Krees), a short sword that supposedly holds some magical qualities.

The bride came from where she was seated on the stage to meet the groom and some more ceremonial exchanges took place. One thing of note is that the bride washes the grooms feet in water covered with flower petals.

After that, both bride and groom were led to the ‘throne’ by the brides father. There was music all this time as well as prayers in I think both Indonesian and arabic from the Islamic Holy book prayed by the local Imams (Islamic Priests who lead in the mosques).

After that, the bride and groom together ‘paid homage’ to both sets of parents, and then fed each other as well as gave tea to each other. All while not saying a word to each other and while on display for the whole audience to see.

Oh and also all of the guests got to eat a full mean as well while all this was happening!

After a bit another ‘character’ appeared. He was a middle 20’s aged guy dressed maybe like an old Indonesian military officer, like from the 1800s. He played the role of a jester and danced an elegant Javanese style dance and led the bride and groom away but only to lead them back to the stage after the whole wedding party changed clothes. After returning, he danced a bit more and dismissed all of the attendants starting with the male guards and then the female attendants, but not without a healthy dose of flirting with the female attendants.

After that was the ceremony was done and when we walked out from under the tents, we really felt like we had just spent 4 hours back 150 years in old colonial Indonesia. It was the most interesting cultural thing we had ever seen.

Oh and for those of you who notice from the pictures, tell me that George Lucas wasn’t inspired by Javanese culture when he created Queen Amidala in the first 3 Starwars movies.