Clashes of Culture in Love Story

In every part of the world, each ethnicity has their own customary procedures for wedding. Here in Malaysia, the Malay's customary for a wedding originated from a mixture background of hindu, javanese as well as Muslim influence. Last weekend, i had the opportunity to witness a wedding of my cousin and her husband who came all the way from England. Nice and humble chap he is. They actually met while my cousin were studying her PHD back in London.

I had the honor of assisting the bridegroom to get all tarted up with his new pure white satin malay tradisional cloth which is called "baju melayu" as well as wearing a "sampin" which requires a special skill to wear it. Once tarted up, the event began..

The bridegroom waited outside of the house until his arrival is being announced before he could step inside the hall. I can see that he was sweating during this moment. I mean, you would too before the big day came. I went and ask him to take a deep breath and be relax as possible. Meanwhile, inside the hall, the guest and family member has started to take their seats. In the middle of the hall, the "Tok Kadi", fellow witness and the bride's father sat to wait for the ceremony to start.

A few minutes later, his name was announce and he was invited to go into the hall. I left him with a encouraging message that everything will be okay and he is the best man for my cousin. He took a deep breath and off he go and sat in the middle to start the ceremony.

In the normal hollywood's movie, this will be the part where the brides say I DO. But here in this wedding, it will be a slightly lengthy one that starts with "Aku terima nikahnya...". The bridegroom said it in a calm and clear manner that once he said it, there is a 5 seconds pause before the Tok Kadi nodded his head, approving the wedding is now approved and they wrapped up the ceremony with a blessing's speech for the bridge marriage to last forever.

Once the "Nikah" is settled, the brides will walk on a red carpet and head to the Wedding hall where they will be seated and treated like a king for a day. During this session, the elders and family members will walk one by one to the bride on the stage to give their blessings.

While the blessing ceremony is being done, the guest are being served with foods and a lot of desserts selection for them to enjoy and celebrate the occasion. i'm glad that a lot of family members came and we cousins get to gather like we used to back in the day while we're small. Despite of our works and responsibilities, we had cousin who came all the way from china, indonesia and France to come and catch up.

Thank you for reading. :)