On Saturday morning, I accompanied my friend to a Javanese wedding. We left here at 7:30 am and took her motorbike up the hill to the church. We were supposed to be there at 8, and the wedding would start at 9--which it did. I was impressed.
We sat quietly and watched the wedding ceremony, which was performed by the pastor of the church. He talked; the couple sat & stood & said 'yes'; the parents blessed the couple; people took pictures of the whole thing; a tall girl twirled gracefully up the aisle with a candle, and the couple did some sort of unity candle lighting; they signed a document.
After the one-hour ceremony, many people left the building, but we just lingered in the back. At the front of the church, a legal ceremony took place. The couple signed government paperwork, and the legal representative gave a speech & banged his gavel. Meanwhile, the rest of us were visiting.
After the legal ceremony, we followed the wedding party to the bride's house (just down the street) for the reception. There, we shook hands along a line of people and entered into a great covered area (outdoors, but enclosed with coloured sheets and bordered on one side by the wall of the bride's house). We were shown to a table & sat down. The tables were all spread with a variety of Indonesian snacks. Before we even got around to tasting any, though, we were ushered up and through another hand-shaking line where we dropped money for the bride's parents into a box before entering into the actual house. Inside were set up two buffet tables laden with rice, a spicy papaya leaf dish, cow fat, chicken liver, beef, fried chicken, puffy/crispy 'crackers', and watermelon (I passed on the fat & liver). There were plastic chairs set up in this room, so we sat down & ate.
When we were done, we went back out into the main area & sat at a different table, where we proceeded to eat snacks, drink hot sweet tea, and visit throughout the long cultural ceremony which followed. Speeches were given (in the language of high Javanese) and various things were done, including the taking of family pictures, but no one really seemed to be paying attention, as we were all eating and visiting and maybe smoking. Eventually, the couple left to change their clothes, and a couple of singers and their musicians provided entertainment for a time. The couple returned and after a little more talking, things were wrapped up. We went up front to shake some more hands & get a photo with the happy couple, and then left, shaking hands all the way out of the 'tent' and down to the street.
By now, I thought we were on our way home, but actually we were going to the groom's house. That was just next door, almost, so we walked over there and shook hands with more people in the yard. We were shown into the house, were we sat down on the woven mats which covered the floor. Assorted snacks were brought to us, along with sweet tea, so we ate and drank. Then we were escorted into the next room, where we were met with another buffet, featuring rice, noodles, seasoned boiled eggs, something that looked like cow fat, gingered beef (which was amazing), and the same kind of crackers. Again, I passed on the fat, and we sat on plastic chairs to eat. Then we shook hands with everyone again, and left to return down the mountain. It was probably close to 2:30 by the time we arrived home, tired and full.
It was really neat to see and experience such a culturally-rich event!
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