Wedding Thai Style - am I married?

Here I am at the beginning of June, wanting to update you on my exciting life in Phuket, Thailand. I have remembered to come back to my blog - impressed??

Truth is, May was a quiet month consisting of marathon training, more marathon training and even more marathon training. I am sat at my office window now with my left leg up on a chair because it has been killing me. I find myself thinking to more exciting Mays gone-by. I don't have to think far back... 22nd May 2011 marked the one-year wedding anniversary of a couple of Mik & my closest friends, James & Ning. I never blogged it then and I should have so here it is... A Thai wedding where I may have even ended up married myself!

As background, Ning (who you see 2nd from the right, sitting next to me) was born in a small village near Loei in the Isaarn (North-East) area of Thailand. As is Thai tradition, when she agreed to marry James, the ceremony was back in her home town among family, close-friends and the entire village! Mik & I were most touched and honored to be invited along, with our roles tenuously explained to us as 'kind-of' best man and maid of honour.

We went with the flow... so here I am in my traditional Thai 'wedding dress' (yes, the confusion certainly began here!) and Ning's sister is preparing my hair and make-up.

 

It all began about 0530am! Preparations were made for the monks arriving from the local temple - this included lots of food arriving! I seem to remember the monks arrived about 0700am and the proceedings began.

There was a lot of chanting by the monks while James, Ning, myself and other members of the 'congregation' knelt on the floor with hands and fingers pressed together as though in prayer. At certain points during the chanting we were meant to reply but my Thai being somewhat embarrassingly useless meant that I just tried to look the part rather than get everything right verbally! At this point, James & Ning also gave alms to the monks directly.

In the above picture you can see the Head monk is chanting and, with what looks like a bunch of flowers in his hand, he is tossing water at us all. This followed water-pouring by Ning & James which is a very important part of the ceremony as this is the point where they are officially made husband and wife, and their marriage is blessed.

Next up was the big feed - quite amusing to see the community drinking bottles of 'Chang' beer at 0800am! I waited until about noon before I could stomach it. All good fun :-)

Then we returned to Ning's family home for the presenting of gifts and the dowry, before we - Ning, James, Mik & myself - were asked to be seated in a line so the village community could come to tie the pre-blessed string to our wrists and donate money for our futures together.
Yes... This is where the confusion really hit. Why were the villagers giving money and string to Mik & I??

The final step was for James to parade the village before entering the family home and sweeping Ning off to the nuptial bed as prepared by the 'elders'. Enough said ;-)


All being told, this was a wonderful day, a wonderful experience and something unforgettable. I was made up to be a part of it. As for whether I am now married to Mik or not... Who cares? It did lead 3 months later to a ring being presented with the words, "Well, the string won't last forever". Awwwww...