After falling in love, Cambodians consider wedding party as a very important traditional celebration. Most of the time men are supposed to propose to women with the agreement between both parents. Men would handle with all the payment for the party which depends on how much the bride’s parents ask for, but sometimes they just agree to help each other by spending half half. The payment for proposing based on the discussion, it might not be so much if the bride is just an ordinary girl, but if she comes from an educated family it might start from 5,000 USD to 10, 000 USD or if the bride is His/Her excellency than it might be a lot more till million dollars. Usually, the minimum of guests invited are from 150 people (15 tables). People from different area celebrate it differently, even the number of days, the preparation, the timing and performing. wedding can be a one day, two days or three days celebration.
At the village, people are still traditionally helping each other all the time, whether there’s funeral, wedding party, house shifting/building and other religion ceremonies. According to the photos above, you could see almost people from the whole village came and help with the celebration. Some of them were asked to come to help, some came by themselves bringing some useful kitchen tools. Talking about tools, have you ever wondered how could the host manage to have so many kitchen stuff? Well, the answer is firstly, they borrowed from pagoda (Buddhist temple). Secondly, they borrowed from their neighbors and lastly, they rent it from the cook or it includes with the food deal (agreement between the cook).
Why did the villagers come and help?
Again, it’s a traditional way of helping each other. It’s like now I help you later you help me back. Another word, who wouldn’t want a free loads of delicious food? after lending a helping hand they all get free food by joining the tables or pack home. When I said free food, doesn’t mean that they don’t have to pay for the wedding because this is not the main dinner/lunch for the guests officially invited.
The final Wedding food (The main dinner or lunch)
In order to not spending so much on food, villagers usually plan the wedding ahead half a year or one year before. They feed the animals that they plan to use for the celebration such as cows, pigs, chickens, ducks and fish. For this particular wedding, I was told that they have slaughtered 2 cows, 30 chickens, 100 fish and 3 pigs. It sounds horrified about how much meat they’ve used, right? But can you imagine all these food fed a thousand mouths?
For one table can fit maximum 10 people and if the table is not completely filled the waiter/waitress would not serve the guests on that table yet. It comes with so much food which is a 6 course menu includes appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert.
On every each table is set with ten glasses, 10 small bowls with spoons, chopsticks, can fruit juices and a lot of beers (can be refilled). It starts with the appetizer which is the a plate of the combination of dry beef, fried vegetable, cashew nut, pickle, pate and meat balls. The food will be served one at the time until the last course.
There is always music in between the food and beverages. It could be a band hire by the couple or the recorded audios. If it’s the live band, the guests can join with the singing as well if they want. Most of the guests drink like highs school kids. A few hours after the eating and drinking, it’s then the dancing time.
How much do you pay for the wedding as a guest?
That based on how close you are to the bride and groom and how much you could afford to pay or it is necessarily upon your satisfaction. At the village, people pay minimum 5 USD (But that is not so appropriate). The common payment starts from 10 USD to 15 USD or more. The payment rate actually can be changed year by year.
Celebrating the wedding is exhausting!
Yes, it’s very exhausting. Can you imagine waking up from 4 O’clock in the morning to do all the make up and change 12 traditional costumes for the whole 3 days? Plus all of the arrangement and entertaining the hundreds and thousands of guests?
After the party, both family would use the money from the guests to pay back for all the arrangement such as the cooking, the make up, the store, music and other things. Then the rest of the money is called “profit” will be given to the new marriage couple. This mean, they have to attend most of their guests’ wedding or other celebration and it will be count as a “pay back” and it must be at least a few dollars more than what they paid on your wedding.
TRAVEL WITH THE FOODIE 