The Wedding Party - with video

Last Monday, one of Fon's relatives, who lives about fifty yards down the road, was getting married and as is tradition, there had to be an early morning procession.

I know I'm old so I have got to the stage in life where I really don't like loud music, unless I chose it, and Thai music absolutely doesn't come anywhere close to being chosen. However, sometimes I don't get a choice and have to simply grin and bear it

The procession, in which the bride is escorted to the groom's house started about five hundred metres away and passed our house, where upon reaching the groom's house, a full sit-down meal was laid on. As this is Koh Samui and everyone is related to everyone else, there were a lot of mouths to feed!

Now I'm not actually sure which one the bride was, but the procession was led by dozens of pink-clad ladies, walking in single file and carrying umbrellas, as well as some flowery gift things. Sorry, even after thirteen years here, I still haven't got a proper handle on the traditions!

That's my Aunty Tang who stopped to pose...as I knew she would!

After the pink ladies came the rest of the hangers-on, hundreds of them completely blocking the lane. By the way, there's nothing wrong with my phone camera, the electric poles truly do lean on rather a jaunty angle!

And then it all got backed up as the house was reached and everyone scrambled for a seat.

You may wonder how I knew they were about to pass, well obviously the time, as I and the wife were both going to go for a meal but also by the music. I could hear the music kick-off when they started. Yes, five hundred metres away but was still clearly audible, but at this point, it wasn't obvious where it was coming from. Then around the corner, about a hundred metres behind the main procession came the mobile boom-box.

This photo reminded me to go and get the electric bill in.....and to cut my verges!

Underneath that fibre-glass exoskeleton is a standard Toyota Hi-Lux with uprated suspension, alternator and loaded down with speakers and amps. Bugger me, did it kick out some bass!

It was followed by half a dozen local buses called Songthaews or 'baht bus' carrying even more folks!

Ready for the video?

Anyway, eventually we all sat down to a mid-morning meal and whilst some weddingy stuff was going on in the house, the rest of us tucked into a decent spread. Obviously rice was involved...

I was sent to sit on the 'old boys' table where the whisky and Chang were freely flowing. I'm genuinely not a big drinker but I always seem to get stuck on the pissheads table. Not to worry, one bottle won't hurt, even though it was still only 10 am!

If you can right to the rear of this photo, there were another dozen 'overflow' tables at the house across the road!

Aunty Tang posing, yet again. The MiL pulling a face, and the rest of the unknown ladies thinking, "Who the fuck's the random white guy?"

Meanwhile, at the house, weddingy stuff was still going on indoors as people had their photos taken outside in front of the display of flowers.

The lady in blue stood just inside the doorway is the Master of Ceremonies (MC). All Thai weddings have one to organise photos and tell everyone whats coming up and organising the whole proceedings but as is usual when you give a Thai a microphone, they use it like its the first time they've ever heard their own voice!

My front garden got turned into a temporary bus station as due to the ongoing feud with the unrelated neighbours, no one wanted to park in the empty field next door for fear of it all kicking off again and spoiling the wedding day!

Sadly, we didn't get to the night-do which was held a couple of miles away at the local Samui naval base, because we were working until 8 pm. If your next question is going to be, "How come they rent naval bases out for weddings there?", then don't ask. I have no idea. By all accounts, with the addition of friends and even more distant relatives, it was attended by close to five hundred people and even from that distance, I could still hear the music at our house till almost midnight!

So this is how we roll on Samui when it comes to weddings. No hotel ballrooms like Bangkok, just huge families enjoying open air parties and a great day was had by all. Even the grumpy old fella who hates loud music!

Thanks and best wishes to Nattapon and Wippawan for a long and happy life together, even though I didn't actually get to see either of you on the big day!

Thanks as always for dropping by and I hope everyone is having a great week.

Martin

@nathen007