Last year we were able to go to one of my classmate’s wedding. He’s in the Royal Thai Navy so off we went to Bangkok to reunite with other classmates and also attend his wedding! It was a very different experience from what I’m used to as a wedding, and it involved multiple ceremonies over two days. Overall, it was awesome and great to see everyone. Here’s some photos I took!
The day started with a parade of gifts and other things into the room where there were monks waiting. The men had to carry various items and present them to the bridesmaids, who then made the men do “feats of strength” to prove their ability to support the groom in his wedding! Haha, you can imagine it was pretty ridiculous. I didn’t take pictures because I was too busy laughing (or supporting the team!)
Here you can see the two families gathered for a picture, with the mother in law running off with the HUGE bag of money! It is very customary to give money as a gift and the groom must present it to the bride’s family. Or maybe it was the other way around. Haha, I’m not 100%, but it was a lot of fun to watch.
Here were the monks that did the morning ceremony. I think it was a blessing or maybe advice. It was all in Thai so not sure, but really cool to see. They offered the monks gifts like fruit and water.
Here’s more shots of the beautiful couple. They had multiple costume changes throughout the event, but her dress was really cool!
Here’s us arriving to the wedding hall. You can see they’ve got new outfits on, and all the ladies had really cute dresses. Looking to be a great evening!
Here’s some fun shots of us goofing off in the main banquet hall. And look at that cake!! This is where it was kind of strange. We kept waiting for the “wedding to start,” but it was like just a long event with a lot of talking and some music and then more talking. There were tables and chairs up front, but that was only for close family. Everyone else just hung out in the back eating and having a great time, which was I guess what we were supposed to be doing. It was like a huge party with the family doing some things up front but everyone else hanging out. And that was the wedding. Just a huge party, which, I mean, was a lot of fun!
Then after a lot of the talking, they left and then came back to MUCH fanfare…there was a sword arch, lots of lights, bubbles, music, and a massive sword they used to “cut” the cake. It felt like we were on a movie set.
Then they left and came back again in different outfits. This was the final change where a lot of the dancing happened – haha, look at their shoes!
You can tell some people were VERY exciting for the dancing portion 😀
These girls have strong “Charlie’s Angels” vibes! The groom even got up on stage and started singing with the band! After a good talking too of course, haha.
Overall like I said, a ton of fun and glad we got to be part of the experience!