Cambodian Wedding In The Morning

We have been to Khmer wedding ring ceremonies (the Church part of the marriage) and receptions before, but until today we had not been to the morning part of a Cambodian Wedding. Hang Ladin is a returned missionary that lives in the Chaktomuk Ward that we have been attending for the last twenty-two months. His bride is a recently returned missionary from the Steung Mean Chey 1st Ward. We were invited to the morning traditional portion of a wedding about a year ago but did not go. This time Sameth, that we work with, encouraged us to go and see what this part of the ceremony was like.

In Phnom Penh few of the streets, other than the main thoroughfares, have street signs. Likewise, most of the buildings and houses do not have their address listed. On top of that we were headed into a part of the city that we were not really familiar. Even with a map a lot of times it is impossible to find the location you are headed for, but we decided to try any how. Needless to say we did get lost, but miraculously we found where we needed to go and we were only a few minutes late.

As with the evening receptions, the bride, groom and wedding party are all dressed up in traditional Khmer outfits which they changed at least once in the hour and a half that we were there. The first part of the gathering was the food parade. Each guest is given a fancy bowl of primarily fruits to carry, then they follow the groom and the wedding party a short distance from the wedding tent. The groom, the wedding party and guests then carry the food to be presented to the brides parents as a dowry for their daughter.

Then everyone sits down for a breakfast of rice porridge. It is a soup with rice, mushrooms, meat and vegetables. We were then invited into a ceremony with the parents in receiving the food brought by the procession. It was a very interesting and educational morning.