Cambodian Wedding Part 2

The second day of the wedding was split in two. The first half of the day was the rest of the traditional Khmer wedding stuff: more blessings from the monks and exchanging of vows. The evening was dedicated to the reception. At most weddings, you hire out a function room for the reception. But when two very wealthy families unite in matrimony, they hire out all the function rooms.

Guys, I’m talking about 4000 people attending the reception.

Yeah.

I was told I had to wear a gown to the reception. I don’t own gowns. All gowns are longer than I am. I stood next to a tall guy the other day and I was the same height as his elbows. HIS ELBOWS. That’s how short I am. I ended up borrowing a dress from Liam’s sister, who bought the dress at some op shop. It was such a plunging neckline I had to wear a boob tube underneath. Paired with my over the top hair and the clashing eyesore of turquoise and lime, I looked pretty awful. But it was OK. I was having fun.Al looked gorgeous in her cobalt gown, which apparently cost her $300!

There were some stunning dresses on display, and sadly I didn’t take any photos. My camera is shocking in low light situations (as you can tell by these atrocious photos). The dresses the younger women were wearing were much more westernised. Think tight-fitting fishtail gowns dotted with sequins and $80K emerald necklaces. Pretty fancy stuff.

The reception was a boisterous yet contained affair. There was lots of dancing, singing, eating and drinking. The lights were so dim I couldn’t take any photos great photos. Some of the food presented that night included a curry, prawn and mango salad, scampi and suckling pig (I should say, a suckling pig at EVERY table) and ABALONE! It was pretty amazing. Al and I made the mistake of stuffing ourselves with the entrees and we could barely finish all courses, which was a shame because all the good food came at the end!

I can't remember what else we did. All I remember was we drank a fuckload of scotch (18 year-old Chivas, actually), and enjoyed good conversation with everyone. I also got to witness some Khmer traditional dance. It is such a contained and orderly dance, very poised and uniform. The dancers softly move their feet to the beat while their fingers delicately arch backwards. It’s fascinating to watch and impossible to mimic.

Later on, when everyone reached a state excessive drunken stupor, some brave young souls jumped on the gigantic stage and belted our some Khmer songs. I am super partial to karaoke so was half keen to sing but also not drunk enough to not care if I was dreadful. One of the groom's friends coaxed me to come on stage with him and we screamed something into the mic along with some of his other friends and the bride and groom. 

All in all a good night. I think by this stage, we were pretty exhausted by all the wedding activities. I can only imagine how exhausted the bride and groom must be. The next night was the last night of the wedding. We were told it was going to be a very chilled out affair at the groom's house so I was looking forward to a chilled out Khmer BBQ of some kind with close friends and families.

Oh, how wrong I was! But I'll talk about it in the next post.