Thai style: a unique wedding
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| Thai wedding |
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The Great Day usually starts at the bride’s or groom’s
house in the morning with a blessing by monks, after which the two
families will often have lunch together. Sometimes the couple will
then head off to the District Office to register their wedding,
though they may do the paperwork before the wedding day.
The most important event of a Thai wedding comes in the afternoon
or early evening. It is called the rod nam sang (rod = pour or soak,
nam = water and sang = conch shell). This is when the two families,
friends and guests all come together.
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| Buddha |
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The couple sit close together on a small stage with their hands
in a wai, usually supported on cushions in front of them. A single
length of white thread is wound around both their heads as a symbol
of their unity. Senior family member and guests then gently pour
water over the couple’s hands using a conch shell, at the same
time offering them good wishes for their future life together.
The ceremony over, everyone then enjoys the wedding party –
usually 100 to 300 guests. These days this may take many different
forms depending on the couple’s preference – a buffet
with Thai or Chinese food, a cocktail-style party or a sit-down
dinner, usually with speeches and entertainment.
A special Western-style wedding
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| Jena Surat and Mert
Ulusoy |
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On 28 February this year, Jena Surat and Mert Ulusoy decided to
make their formal commitment in Phuket. Neither comes from the island
– she is from Chiang Mai and he is from Turkey – but both
have lived and worked in Phuket for about three years.
They chose to have a non-religious Western style ceremony. The bride
worn a beautiful white gown and her beau a smart light-gray suit.
A close friend performed the rites.
“We wanted our friends to be part of our wedding day, so we
had the wedding in Phuket, where we met,” the new bride explained.
“I just can’t imagine a better, more romantic wedding
than we had, aboard a wooden boat with the sunset as a backdrop.
My parents flew from Chiang Mai and Mert's brother flew in from
Istanbul to celebrate the moment with us.
The Ulusoys’ wedding is just one of many types of ceremony
that can be organised in Phuket. Some couples come here specially
to have Thai ceremony wedding. Others dream of a wedding on a tropical
beach or on a private island, in a chapel on a lake, in a marina,
in the jungle, at a private luxury villa or in a 100-year-old Phuket
mansion – the possibilities are almost endless. All the top
hotels in Phuket have long experience in making such dreams come
true.
The wedding planner
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| Cindy Chan |
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Cindy Chan, Wedding Services Manager of Laguna Phuket showed Phuket.com
around the beautiful wedding chapel on a lagoon in the middle of
the complex. The building – Thailand’s only resort-based
wedding chapel – has an interior area of 79 square metres and
can easily seat 50 people. Light, airy, painted white all over,
it has a 360-degree view that can take your breath away when you
enter.
“Our original idea in building the chapel was to serve the
Japanese wedding market. Many Japanese brides, regardless of their
faith, dream of a white wedding in a lovely chapel. But the original
plan didn’t work very well because there were so many competitors
chasing the same market. We, did, however, get couples from many
other places using the chapel, so our focus is changing; now we
concentrate more on markets such as Australia and the UK,”
Ms Chan says.
Her company provides a one-stop service for weddings, including
wedding gown, makeup artist and hairdresser. Weddings gowns may
be rented or bought outright, she says – Asians tend to rent
while Westerners prefer to buy.
“We have the gowns made in Japan using only Italian fabric,
which makes the cost higher than for ordinary wedding dresses,”
Ms Chan notes. “The starting price for renting is USD 300 while
buying one costs USD 1,000 upward.”
The options
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| Lalvani-Cadbury
wedding |
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When Divia Lalvani wed chocolate heir Joel Michael Cadbury, they
did it in the Royal Indian style at Amanpuri, followed by a week
of partying at the Lalvani family business, the Royal Phuket Marina.
The Lalvani-Cadbury wedding reportedly cost around USD 1.3 million,
making it easily the grandest Phuket wedding of 2006.
Not everyone can afford a wedding as posh as the Lalvani-Cadbury
one. Happily, there are plenty of options. A typical wedding package
on the island usually will usually include a Thai or Western-style
blessing ceremony with a celebrant to conduct the ceremony, a fresh
floral bouquet for the bride and corsages for the groom and special
guests.
It may also include fresh floral arrangements, the wedding cake
and champagne (or sparkling wine), and a photographer or videographer
to record the ceremony and reception. Some resorts offer live music
and wedding spa packages, or such exotic extras as having a baby
elephant join the ceremony, laser and fireworks shows or a plant-it-yourself
“love tree” in the resort garden, for example.
The choice is yours
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| Wedding on the beach
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Most hotels can easily assist with a dream wedding, but require
a minimum of two weeks’ notice. Here are some examples of the
wedding packages available on the island:
In the north of the island, the JW
Marriott Phuket Resort & Spa offers wedding packages starting
from USD 1,290 and honeymoon packages starting from USD 917 for
three nights.
The price for wedding chapel packages at Laguna depends on which
hotel it is booked through: USD 3,400 at the Banyan
Tree, USD 3,400 at the Sheraton
Grande Laguna, USD 2,300 at the Dusit
Laguna and USD 2,100 at the Laguna
Beach Resort.
In Kata, the Katathani
Phuket Beach Resort offers a wedding package at USD 2,600, while
in Rawai, the Evason
Phuket Resort & Six Senses Spa sells its Bon Island Wedding
Package for USD 2,495. In Patong, the Blue
Marine Resort & Spa, charges USD 1,030 for a Thai or Western
wedding package and USD 1,225 for its Wedding on the Beach package.
The legal issue
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| Thai style wedding
in 1976 |
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A marriage in Thailand is legal only when officially registered.
When this is done, the union is recognized throughout the world.
Non-Thais must first get a letter of affirmation, in their native
language. This is a declaration that you are free to marry. This
letter must be taken to your embassy in Bangkok to be certified.
Once this is complete, it must be translated into Thai and then
certified again by the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Tel: +66
(0)2 575 1056 – 59 or +66 (0)2 981 7171). You can turn up at
the Register Office on any working day, produce all the relevant
documentation and within 30 minutes leave with a marriage certificate.
If you want to have your marriage registered in Thailand, you can
do the paperwork yourselves, but this can be a very time-consuming;
there is a lot of running-around from one government office to another,
mostly in Bangkok, where the relevant offices are. It is probably
much easier to consult your wedding planner, who may be able to
organise it for you. Usually this cost is between 5,000 and 10,000
baht. You should allow an extra four or five days at least for this
process.
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