The Isaan Wedding 2
- art58koen
- Aug 4
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 6
The next day started early with TDEP feeding his many cats, something which is always a pleasure to watch.
Following this, he talked a bit with Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, who hadn’t slept much, which wasn’t surprising as this was The Day!
Both of them were wearing western style wedding outfits, which I considered hilarious, as the ceremony would be far from western culture.
Inside the former Grandpa Café, 5 monks were ready to do their monk thing.
The bride and groom dutifully joined them and sat down on the floor to receive the blessings plus three dots of white paste, usually powder and water, on their foreheads as a form of blessing.
Afterwards, TDEP and Guinevere joined inside for another part of the ceremony in which a cotton string is wrapped around the bride and groom’s heads as a ceremonial headdress (mong kon) to ‘symbolize their union.’
For this part, the wise old woman and Peter Pan’s mom joined as well.
An additional string from the ceremonial head thingy to the monks probably reinforced the blessing, and to top it off, the head monk started splattering the wedding victims, uh, attendees, with holy water.
I was extremely happy to be standing at a safe distance and managed to stay dry while taking photos!
Occasionally, I glanced at TDEP, who looked extremely uncomfortable sitting traditionally on the floor, and I couldn’t resist smirking a bit.
Food was served for the monks, followed by the obligatory envelopes, no free ride here!
By now, most of the guests had arrived and were enjoying breakfast.
In the meantime, 2 lottery ticket sellers had joined the party as well in the hope of selling tickets on such an auspicious day.
After numerous photo sessions, the second part of the ceremony was starting: The Groom's Procession.
Numerous guests and locals accompanied Peter Pan on foot, walking behind the dreaded sound system pickup, which was blasting traditional wedding tunes at a volume that probably could be heard all the way in Bangkok.
Other guests were ‘guarding’ Grandpa Cafe, where Tinkerbell was placed under 'protection'.
As soon as Peter Pan and his gang had arrived at the gate, the first bunch of Tinkerbell’s guards blocked their way, holding fragile chains in front of them.
I think that threatening to set the dogs upon him would have been more effective!
I guess Peter Pan had been well briefed in advance on how to tackle this hurdle, as he kept on smiling and offered the guards envelopes with 100 THB each, problem solved.
Like most of these old traditions, it really boils down to the universal rule: No Money, No Honey.
The rest of the guards were similarly bribed, but upon reaching the last group of 6 guards, Peter Pan discovered to his horror that he had run out of envelopes!
Everybody held their breath.
Would this be the end of his attempt to get married?
Ancient sacred traditions like these must be honored, no matter what.
Luckily, one of the guards suddenly had a brilliant idea: electronic transfer would be acceptable as well!
To me, it seemed like blasphemy, but everybody else had no issues with this modern variant.
Only 2 hurdles remained, which is described in the 3rd and final part of The Isaan Wedding:
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