BALI WEEDING

Few weeks go I got a client for photo shooting. It was their wedding day. The bride is natively from Tabanan Regency and the groom is from Northern regency of Buleleng. Both groom and bride are belonging to ‘brahmin’ family.

We started the photo shooting from the bride house. This day, the groom family will be coming to the bridge house, pick up the bride and bring it to the groom house to do the wedding ceremony. There would also several step of ritual would be done in the bride house before. It took about an hour for the bride to do the make and put on the heavy hair dress and colorful Balinese outfits. The groom and the family come on time. A formal meeting between two families is done after a welcome drink given. The meeting was run smooth and the bride family agrees to let their daughter to merry the groom as it was decided on previous meeting. So far the process was normal. Now, it is time for the family to call the bride to join the meeting. During the meeting the bride was staying in inside the room.

The procession to call the bride to go out from the room was the first unique event. One man is appointed (on behalf of the groom) to sing a very touchy and interesting song to call the bride. On the other side of the door, an appointed lady (on behalf of the bride) replies the calling song with very loving song. After several time singing back and forth, they get an agreement. They let the door open and the groom went in inside and take the bride out. Locally this procession is called ‘ngungkab lawang’ literally mean ‘open the door.

The bride went out but we cannot see her faces as it was covered by a piece of semi transparent textile. Another unique part of this weeding. The ritual proceeds. It is time for the bride to say good bye to her family especially her mother. A lady sing a very sad song act as the bride to ask forgiveness and good bye to her family. A sad situation arouse. When the bride ask to say good bye by her self, the silence sad was explode. She was crying deeply and followed by her mother. Only few words come out from her. It must be hard time for her to realize that she had to leave her family and have to join the new family of her husband. The sad situation was ended when a bride family member giving some married advice to the newly couple in a funny way.

The ritual proceed by going to the family temple to do ‘good bye’ prayer. The bride and groom were carried out on hand by four men to the temple. Another uniqueness. The transparent textile that covering the bride was open by the groom before the praying. After the prayer finish then the groom family with the bridge drive back to Buleleng. It was followed by the bridge family afterward. The ceremony in groom family kind of normal but still interesting to see.