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Published: March 28th 2008
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Wedding day
My brother-in-law, Ding(left) showed Doug's family around Nai Yang beach. Thanks Sean, Heather, and Sharon for supplying all the photos in this entry.
The night before our wedding day, Doug got really sick and threw up multiple times throughout the night. I thought we might have to put off our wedding but he felt better in the morning. I almost couldn't get up after getting only a few hours of sleep.
Thai wedding's generally not arranged at a temple but at a groom's house. I kind of adapted it to fit our situation. Since I'm a "Chinese" Thai, the bride will have to move into the groom's house therefore the wedding ceremony should be at the groom's. However in this case, most of my family's in Thailand and Doug's family were excited to coming to Thailand so we decided to have our wedding in Thailand. The temple seems to be a good place to have a ceremony for us and so we did.
After we were able to get out of bed and got dressed, my sister came to pick us up to go to the wedding shop. Doug didn't have any problem with his fixed suit but my dress needed some minor adjustment at the last minute.
Wedding day
Sean, Doug's dad, on a relaxing and quiet beach. Then I had problem putting contact lenses on since it had been ages since I last used them. With Pi Tam(wedding facilitator)'s help putting them into my eyes, things seemed to be fine again.
We arrived at Nai Yang temple(named after the beach it's located very close by to)a little late. The monks were ready. We had no idea what to do but then our other helper came, Pi Tam's mother. She guided me through out the process and stood right next to me until the end of the ceremony. That was nice.
The ceremony started with I and Doug lighting candles and incenses, then offering to the monk, the monks chanted and attendants followed, the head monk "jerm"(painted 3 dots on I and Doug's foreheads) and sprinkled holy water on our heads. My dad then placed thin ropes on our heads to signify the beginning of our married life then put flower garlands around our necks. the head monk then proceeded with holy water pouring into our palms and the family members followed starting with my dad and Doug's dad and mom, then stepmother, and then the rest of the family from the oldest to the youngest.
Wedding day
We had our wedding at Wat Nai Yang(short name)located close to Nai Yang beach. I and Doug didn't even get to see the beach because we were at the wedding shop getting dressed and everything. Doug's family got to kill time there while waiting for us to get to the temple. Last part of the wedding was also definitely not Thai tradition, rings exchange. We asked to add this part to the wedding and they allowed us to do so. Doug remembered his vow by heart, he got me emotional and I couldn't hold my tears of happiness inside anymore. I, on the other hand, used a cheat sheet to help me get through vow exchange process. I was still a little weepy when I gave my vow and I noticed Doug became emotional too and I wasn't mistaken as I shaded off his tear at the end of our rings exchange. So everything went well, we both got the right finger of the other person but coincidently, we both got the wrong hand of the other person. Left...it was supposed to be left hand. So we had to do our own informal rings exchange after we got into our normal clothes.
After we were finished with religious and non-religious parts inside the chapel, it was picture time and we sure had a lot of fun taking pictures. Especially, Thai posing style that people just can't keep their hands to themselves but put them up on the back of
Wedding day
The monks chanted in Bali-Sansakrit. All attendants repeated the chanting. They were waiting for I and Doug to be ready. the head of another person and show victory sign. It's what we call "Japanese style". Heather called it goofy posing.
We were definitely focus of attention to many temple visitors that day. At the beginning of the ceremony, I saw a foreign couple stopped to watch and take pictures of our wedding. This's probably the fastest wedding ceremony I've ever attended. We were done in less than an hour. But even that, I noticed Doug's sweat dripping down from the tip of his nose. He got pretty bad sunburn from being on coral island in the last 2.5 days. So his forehead was pretty red but he felt no pain there. He calls it "radioactive exposed" forehead. I told him we could have another wedding in the future. It was actually an excuse for me to travel again. He didn't take up on that though, but agreed with the travel part. Whewwwwwww!!!!!
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Heather Kilpatrick
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photos
I love the photo of you, Doug and Alis. Just lovely. It was a really fun ceremony.