Thai Style Wedding [1]: Morning Part

I read about the Thai wedding ceremony today and I am going to try and summarize it here. My American boyfriend asked me a few times about Thai wedding and how Thais celebrate the wedding ceremony. I really had no idea about the ceremony until I read more about it because I have never been married before. Anyway, I will try to explain the ceremony and process here so that you can have some basic information about it if you are thinking of having a Thai style wedding.

Thai Weddings seem so different now than from in the past. Most of the couples getting married today do it in one day to save time and money. I have been to a few wedding ceremonies that were held in the morning, but more in the night.

If you decide to celebrate and have a wedding ceremony in just one day, the following explanation details some of the common Thai traditions and events when a wedding is held for just one day.

Morning Part:

Mostly morning part is held at the bride's house. The groom and his parents and other family members or relatives will come to the bride's house. Well, for the morning part, the number of guests is less than in the night ceremony. Mostly only family members and close relatives both from the bride's and the groom's sides are invited. First things in the morning, the bride and the groom will offer food for monks that they invited. The bride and the groom will hold the same pot and ladle and then ladle some rice to the monk's bowls together. The bride's hand that is holding the ladle will be on top of the groom's hand because it is believed that will make the groom always believe what the bride says.

After that the bride and their parents will get back in the house and wait for the groom to get in. On the groom side, once the groom decides to get married with the bride, he will have to invite a person that he respects and older than him to make the marriage proposal for him. That person is called "Thao Kae" or matchmaker in english. The groom side will make a procession near the bride's house with the matchmaker in the front following with the groom's parents, the groom and the others carrying the trays of gifts. Once the procession is ready, they will walk to the bride's house.

At the bride's house, there will be someone holding a silver or gold chains blocking the groom to get in and ask them what is the purpose of their coming. The matchmaker who is in the front of the procession will tell them they would like to make a proposal and then the matchmaker will give them one or more pink envelopes with money inside to them as a fee to get in and they will let you get in when they are pleased with what they get. We call that silver and golden gates. Mostly 2, the first the groom will have to get through is silver and the other is golden. There maybe more than 2 gates, so the groom will have to prepare the envelopes and make sure it will be enough.

Once the groom can get in they will see the bride's parents and the others waiting. The matchmaker will talk to the bride's parents while the other will receive the gift trays from the groom's side. The matchmaker will ask the bride's parents to have the bride for the groom. The bride parents will ask the bride if she would like that and then she will say "yes".

After that the matchmaker will bring the trays of bride-price, the money on the tray with some other things like gold necklaces to give to the bride's parents to have the bride from them, to the bride's parents. The bride's parent may count it and keep it or give it back to the bride and the groom later. After that the bride and the groom will change the wedding rings. The elders will bless them and then they will do blessed water ceremony by pouring consecrated water out from the conch shell on the bride's and the groom's hands.

After that all the guests will have lunch together and then wait till the night time to go the night wedding ceremony.

Loy Krathong Festival

At every fullmoon nights in November we will go to the river to float our small boat or raft to thank the goddess of water. Some says it is done to float away our unhappiness, bad luck, anger or something like that and make life better or for good luck. For me, this time I wished for good luck. We call it Loy Krathong which means "float the raft". Loy means "to float" and Krathong is "a small boat or raft".

Krathong or a small boat or raft is normally made from a piece of banana tree and decorated with banana leaves and flowers and candle. Some will cut their finger nails or hair and put it in krathong as a symbol of their bad parts. Some put some coins in it. Some will be waiting in the river to collect the coins and damage the Krathongs which I really don't like it.

In 2009, Loy Krathong was on 2nd of Noverber. I was gonna write about the festival on the day or the following day the festival was but I was too lazy. I always wait for this day every year to make a kathong to float to the river. And since it was on Monday this time, we went to the flower market near my house on Sunday 1st of November. I took some photos of the market. It was my first time there. Wow so much stuff to buy!

So bad that my boyfriend was not here. He was sent to somewhere in the world and could not come and join me. I wish we could it together next year.

Once we got back from the market, my 6 year-old nephew and I stated making our krathongs. I chose a piece of banana tree which we bought from the market. We bought a whole pack with 10 pieces for 50 baht and 2 kilos of banana leaves for 30 baht and a few bags of flowers for 10 baht each. Once it was done, it looked like the picture. I put some flowers and candle and joss sticks to it before I went to the canal.

On 2nd of November at 7.30pm, we went to a temple near the house. The traffic is always bad on that day so we didn't want to go to anywhere farther. We tried once but got stuck near the house for a few hours.

Kids like to play with fireworks at this festival. Aside from many stands selling krathong, there are also many selling fireworks.

Once we got t the temple we headed to the canal. There were some big candles for us to use if we didn't bring a lighter. Once we light our cadles and burned the joss sticks, we brought the krathongs to the canal and preyed for luck or whatever we wanted and let the them go in the canal.

I saw some kids in the canal looking for money in the krathongs. I hoped they would not attack mine and I didn't put any money in there. After we were done, we walked there for awhile and then headed back home.

Sky Tassel and Garuda

In the picture above is what you can find at any temple in Thailand. When my boyfriend was here in February he saw it at evey temple and asked me what it was. I did some web research for him and found as below.

"Chofah or Sky Tassel is one of the Thai architectural decorative ornament adorns the top at the end of Wat and palaces roof in most of the south east Asia contries, such as Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and etc.. It resembles a tall thin bird or hornlike, and is generally believed to represent the mythical creature Garuda, half bird and half man, who carried the god Vishnu across the sky. "

What I found more aside from what I got at wikipedia is that some temples with no sky tassel were assumed they were built in the age of the third king with chinese style.

In the picture is a creature called Garuda. Garuda is a large mythical bird or bird-like creature that appears in both Hindu and Buddhist mythology.

Religions and Cultures

This is a page for the links to all of my articles about religions and cultures in Thailand.

• Thai Style Wedding [1]: Morning Part
• Loy Krathong Festival
• Activities at the Temple on Religious Days
• Asalha Puja and Vassa
• Sky Tassel and Garuda
• Songkran: Water Battle at Khao Sarn and Silom Road!