Cambodian Wedding at countryside

I just returned from the wedding of my sister. It was for 2 meaningful days. It is time of family reunion and joy, blessing, celebration, tradition and love. I would love to show you some beautiful photos from the wedding. There are three phases of wedding celebration: preparation day or Jol Ruong Kar day, wedding ceremony day and last is the reception. It was 3days before and now, all program can be held in one day and half.

Several rituals in the wedding

It is time of family reunion and joy, blessing, celebration, tradition and love. I would love to show you some beautiful photos from the wedding.

1. Preparation day: cakes and fruits are prepared for guests and also for gift offering ceremony.Cakes made from sticky rice, bean, bacon, banana wrapped in the banana leavesCakes made from sticky rice, bean, bacon, banana wrapped in the banana leaves

2. Wedding day: all traditional ceremonies and rituals, one after one. 

The rituals were for 3 days before but now, it is shortened to half day ceremony including gift offering ceremony - fruit counting rituals, ring exchange, hair cutting, blessing and gift giving to couples, and 7 rounds of candle blessings.. It is accompanied by live traditional music band, lead by a couple of clergy men, food offering to ancestors to announce that the couple is now married.. 

Each ritual has its own meaning, some people don't even know what they are for: 

1. Ring exchange ritual: wear the ring at the left finger as it connects to the heart
2. Head on the floor ritual: Lowing your head to the floor together in front of your parents means that you both are tight to the couple life, you collapse, go forward slow, or quick, depends on both of them take care of each other, take responsibility. 
3. Areca flower blessing ritual: relatives spread areca flower on you means your prosperity depends mainly on the couple to take care, not bring in the fire or burn it out.
4. Hair cutting ritual: it means that you must cut your longer hair or make them one standard for two, cut what's bad out, bring what's good in, outside of the family uses discipline and inside use sympathy.
5. Sitting in the seven circle of happiness fire ritual or 7 rounds of candle blessings: it shows that your life's happiness depends mainly on patience and hard work. 

   All ritual revolves around one special flower - betel nut flower or areca nut flower - represents value, purity, and normally it is very difficult to find it. In order to cut it for the wedding, they have the rituals for the person to claim up and cut it, then give it to the groom. The groom will carry this (not letting it slide or drop at all), to give the parents of the wife to-be to show gratitude towards their parents and siblings. Nowadays, they just buy it from the market. They shorten the ceremony so no time for the pickup anymore. In the last ritual, the master of ceremony (clergy man) will ask people to break the flower and then use as the blessing flowers to spread on the couple at the very end of ceremony!

Several rituals in the weddingSeveral rituals in the weddingSeveral rituals in the weddingSeveral rituals in the wedding

3. Reception: guests were invited to join in the wedding. Small wedding invites about 200 guests (relatives and friends) and big wedding of rich people or middle class family invites up to 800-1200 guests.

Reception of guests and relatives

Color in the wedding: each ritual has different sets of outfits, colors and hairstyles. Gold or yellow color is usually used in the morning to represent bright sunshine or the bright starter of new phase of life.. Pink, green, blue, purple are more pleasant so it is used in the reception. Red is a lucky color for Chinese but used mixed in Cambodian culture too. Probably, it means lucky.