Wedding Weekend - Part One

This past Thursday, our family and a few friends hit the road for a long trip to Stung Treng, a province in northern Cambodia, bordering Laos. We were on our way to attend the wedding of our friend Sopheak, and we had a great time learning more about Cambodian wedding culture, getting outside of the city, enjoying fruit fresh from the tree, seeing dolphins jump in the Mekong River, and celebrating with the friends and family present for the wedding and reception.

Ryan drove the EMM van (he's getting really good at driving like a Cambodian - which is a little bit scary at times!) and Sophal (Women's Dorm Director), Soda and Pala (former dorm students), and Greta Kauffman (EMM intern) came with us. We stopped at Sophal's aunt's citrus orchard on the way, and enjoyed fresh orange juice in the grove. We slept the night at a guest house in Kratie (pronounced Kraw-jeh), stopped a bit on the banks of the Mekong River to see an endangered species of dolphins jumping in the water, and arrived at the SreyPenh (the bride)'s house on Friday afternoon.

At 7 a.m. Saturday morning, we joined the other guests in the traditional Khmer wedding proceedings. That is, getting in line behind the groom for a walk with family and wedding guests from a different location (maybe a kilometer away) to the bride's house, where she waits with her family. The guests all help to carry the "dowry gifts," which are food (fresh meat, veggies, fruit, desserts, etc.) that will be shared at the meals provided for the guests. In the photo above, Sopheak (in gold), wearing traditional dress and flanked by his parents, is waiting until the guests are all in order for the procession to begin. (We understand that some weddings start even earlier than this!)

Here, SreyPenh offers Sopheak a drink (coconut juice) to refresh him from the trek (which was not even a kilometer in this case, but such is the tradition). She is also wearing traditional dress, as Khmer royalty would have worn in centuries past.

Sopheak and SreyPenh before entering the house

Another tradition of Khmer weddings is to broadcast the proceedings and traditional wedding music from loudspeakers throughout the neighborhood and surrounding area. Even though we weren't always sure what was going on, the neighbors a couple km.'s away woud have known what was happening!

Well, due to some internet issues we seem to be having with the blog site, I'll have to make this into a two-part post and share the rest of the wedding photos later. Stay tuned for the rest of the story!