An Isaan Wedding

A few days into our stay in SamBerDang we witnessed the traditional wedding ceremony here in the Isaan region. It was a whole day celebration for the villagers largely influenced by abundant food dishes and lots of Thai Whiskey! One of the traditions is for the groom to come into the bride's village and essentially bargain for his bride. This took place in the middle of the village and was present during the entire day for everyone to see. The bride was not due to arrive until midnight, giving her man plenty of time to stake his claim and for the villagers to get completely wasted on their drink of choice! We arrived in the afternoon and stepped into a lively atmosphere where the locals were ecstatic to see that two "farangs" were on hand to witness the ceremony. Instantly we were escorted into the main wedding hall (basically a small thai living room) where the locals were, one by one, greeting the groom and tying pieces of white string around his wrist to bring the marriage good luck. Immediately, the attention turned to the Global Prancers as we were directed to sit on the thai mats lining the concrete floors. Lively music and clapping accompanied the ceremonial wishing of prosperity, good health and all-around good fortune to us both. At first, we were afraid that we were taking away from the bride and groom's day, but we were assured otherwise when the groom started video-taping (with a large smile on his face) as each and every villager tied a string around both of our wrists. They even told us that we were loved by the village as if we were one of their own, translated, of course, by BunLueng. The event was capped off by us dancing in the middle of the room, surrounded by locals, as much as the room could handle. We followed BunLueng out as she decided the lack of sobreity and strong stares of the thai men were gaining heavy momentum as the day rolled on. We left with many people giving us hugs and gaping smiles, evidently glowing that we were part of their glorious celebration. The entire ordeal left us with a giant sense of belonging to the village and warmth in our hearts.