I will pay 1,000,000riel !Usually as a westerner when you look into the future to envision your wedding, you see a lot of predictable ingredients. Church ceremonies, dinner suits, white silk dresses, stretch Mercedes, roses, lots of champagne and canapés and speeches that vary between truly fantastic and simply embarrassing. Afterwards, you hope to jet off somewhere exotic and romantic for a honeymoon and then return to a life in the suburbs with a white picket fence, a Volvo in the driveway and a Labrador tearing up your Azaleas.
But what if, via the slings and arrows of fantastic good fortune, you find yourself getting married to a stunning foreign lass from an ancient culture in an exotic country? I can tell you from recent experience that everything goes out the window and you are in for an amazing multi-cultural love-fest that will test your endurance, your negotiation skills and your ability to handle stress to all new levels.
The first thing you should understand about Cambodia is that nothing important should happen without a visit to the monk. You need to secure an auspicious date that the good Buddha deems suitable. You can hint strongly (as I did) that a weekend in February would be most suitable for you and 9 times out of 10, imagine your surprise; you will get your desired date. Weekends are preferred as having it during the week could lead to less “customers” (more on this later) attending. Similarly, rainy season weddings are a no no.
Most weddings I have been to are set directly outside and adjoining the family home in a rented marquee that is crammed with tables, stadium-sized speakers, stray dogs and sometimes even a chicken or two. If you are lucky, it will be at a venue in Phnom Penh as a wedding in the provinces can be a brutal endurance event. Guesthouses are non-existent and ablutions are…well…..rudimentary. Still, provincial Khmer weddings are great fun and there is nothing that insane amounts of beer and whiskey cannot rectify.
Usually, a groom in Cambodia pays a dowry, the family organises the wedding and then the monetary gifts from guests are handed back to the bride and groom…… hopefully paying for the wedding. This leads to the wedding becoming a capital raising IPO-style venture where guests are referred to as “customers” and monetary gifts lead to post-wedding discussions of whether the bottom line ran at a profit or a loss. Luckily, I have a very accommodating mother-in-law so I did not participate in the traditional paying of a dowry-instead respectfully requesting that I pay for, and organise, the wedding myself with help from my wife. With many friends and family jetting in, I wanted some creative control and so we opted for Open Wine, a restaurant set within a large compound in Phnom Penh. Invitations were printed on sedate cream cardboard with silver writing (I detest gold on red) and I capped the number at 120 instead of the obligatory 500.
As we approached the big day I must have rung Frank at Open Wine a million times with little requests and checklists. To my delight all I ever got was a“ Oui,c’est pas une problem ! “. No request was too much or too little and his patience was an absolute virtue. I was very unsure how my hybrid wedding would go but Frank eased me through the process and on the day I should never have worried. After the traditional procession walk from Pavilion Hotel we arrived to the gloriously decorated, air-conditioned restaurant for the ceremonies and during a one hour break we noshed on bacon and eggs and Khmer soup for breakfast. A few more ceremonies later and we were formally married and then everyone got to go home for a few hours before the big party.
The reception itself was better than I could ever have imagined. Open Wine looked absolutely stunning with white chairs and tables and glowing silk lights overhead. The bbq sizzled, the buffet bristled with delicious cross-cultural fair and the beer was never ending and icy cold. Frank and Phillip had done an amazing job preparing the venue for their very first wedding and they both watched like hawks over everything to make sure it went smoothly. As the band belted out excellent rock covers, the bridal party stood at the front in a casual cluster welcoming all arrivals and the men all got to where open necked western suits – a major win! Kids played on the teeter totters, people table swapped and after the glorious cake was cut, it was time to get down and dirty on the dance floor.
We really need to thank Open Wine for making everything so perfect. I can highly recommend this venue as an excellent place to get hitched. The management, staff, food and lay out are excellent. Thanks to Anthony here at EAS for all the photos and to all my other friends who took footage of the event. Big thanks also to Derek and Wendy at Talking to A Stranger for making the pre-party such a success. With so many people coming from overseas, and many expats and Khmers in attendance, many new friendships were formed and my wife and I felt completely overwhelmed at the success of the event.
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My Wedding Speech from the Friday night pre-party;
Welcome to Talking To a Stranger. Thank you to everyone for coming tonight and welcome to the first of several events that I hope will make your stay in Cambodia and our wedding a memorable one.
As I look out I am truly humbled to see….
Most of my family;
Jan and Mike
Adam, Emma and Laura
Sarah,Shane,Banjo,Max
Sibella
Erica my God Mother
My closest and longest serving friends who have come from all over the world to be here including my best men;
Darin Lester - HK
Duncan Young - UK
Anthony Owen- AUS
My Khmer family;
Ma
Phalla
Tra
Lyn
Neung
Dany
Veasna
Srey Nek
Srey Pek
It is at a time like this that you realise how much people really care about you and I am so glad so many of you can be here.
Many of you may or may not know how I met my gorgeous fiancée so here is the basic story .
Visit 1; with my sister Sarah
6 months of email and phone calls later………….
Visit 2
Home briefly to pack-up and rent the house out.
If you had said two years ago I would be where I am today, I would have thought you were joking. I had no intention of coming to Cambodia until the last minute, no idea what it would be like when I got here and certainly no idea I would be embarking on a fateful trip that would change my life forever.
As it is, I am now living and working in Cambodia, a country that , as you all know from reading my blog and emails, has lodged itself under my skin well and truly. I have thousands of photos, have written thousands of words (many of which I have been paid for – thanks Anthony ! ) and have amazing memories of the last two years. At a time when I was resigned to a fairly monotonous existence back home, I found my Shangri-La and I still shake my head at the path my life has taken.
Without this speech turning into an Oscars style thankfest, there are indeed many people I want to thank tonight so please be with me.
To the Garnett Family; Thank you so much for being so supportive throughout the life changing decision(s) I have made. None of you were surprised when I moved here, none of you were surprised when I announced Leakhana and I were getting married and none of you were surprised when I told you we were pregnant. You have all along sensed the dedication Leakhana and I have had to each other and have been behind us all the way with encouragement I miss you all very much and I miss so many things about Australia . I miss our farm Xanadu and its wide open spaces and log fire , I miss watching the Rugby with dad over a bottle of red and having my mum fuss and dote over me, I miss my dog Scout terribly, I miss the fun parties at Shrdlu and watching my nieces and nephews grow up and I miss the white sand and rolling waves of our beaches but I am very happy in Cambodia and with Leakhana as my wife my future is very bright !I hope you enjoy Cambodia and your trip to Siem Reap and I hope maybe one day you might return to further explore this country because it has so much to offer .
To my Sister Sarah specifically, thank you for allowing me to come with you on that fateful first trip. We had such an amazing time together and you have been part of our sorry ever since…indeed, Leakhana says she only agreed to go out with me because she met you and felt that anyone with a sister like you I must be a good guy! You were right there when I fell in love with Leakhana on pretty much the first day I met her and whilst you could have said “don’t be stupid you are on a holiday “or some such, you didn’t. You told me to go for it and I will always love you for that.
To my Khmer mother-in-law Ma, Thank you for breaking with Khmer tradition and allowing me to take Leakhana on a motorbike trip for several weeks when I first came here. It allowed us the time to get to know each other and you have always made me feel welcome in your house. I have learnt so much about Khmer culture through you and your family and I am very happy to be marrying into the Yim clan. To Tra, my Khmer brother-in-law…mate….you are a true friend to me and you have always helped me no matter what the situation. I hope our friendship continues to grow and with both our women expecting babies at the same time…I have no doubt it will. Also a special thanks to Srey Neung who I know has been sewing like a mad woman making dresses for the all the Yim girls.
I am lucky enough to have developed a great circle of friends in Phnom Penh from all over the world, involved in all manner of interesting work and from all walks of life, both young and old. To all my expat friends here tonight – you guys are all great and you make my time here a riot. We certainly have a good time together whether it be partying in the bars, blasting along dusty trails on dirt bikes or just hanging out on the weekend together. The expat scene here, like a lot of places in the world, is alive and well and when we all get together…well…..its madness on a grand scale and I am lucky to have the friends here that I do.
In a town where gainful employment can be hard to find, I am lucky enough to have found a great job at ISPP – so a very big thanks to Dr Rob Mockrish and Sally Relph for taking me on and I hope they are as happy with me as I am with them. ISPP is a great place to work and I am happy in the workplace for the first time in a long time. There are quite a few colleagues from ISPP here tonight and I thank you all for coming.
To Wendy and Derek, not only the owners of TTAS but also fast becoming good friends of mine, thank you so much for all your help preparing for tonight. I think everyone will agree the place looks great and the food is delicious.
Lastly but most importantly to my very soon –to-be wife Leakhana…..Sweetheart, I had a lot of trouble trying to write words that could express how lucky I feel to have found you. I must have deleted and re written this bit about 100 times! Throughout my life as I have experienced the good and the bad, I have always held strong to the belief that at some stage I would meet the woman of my dreams – no matter how long it took. In my mind, when I thought about who I might marry one day…. I hoped my wife would be smart, determined, gentle natured, low maintenance, gorgeous and someone I could basically put on a pedestal and cherish. I certainly got all of that in you! Everybody who meets you gets caught in your tractor beam of warmth and when I look at you every day I still melt internally. We have stuck to our plan from the moment we met and I still get goose bumps when I think about us saying “this is not goodbye, this is see you soon!” when we left each other at Ponchyntong Airport after my first visit. I remember there were no tears and I was not even sad because I almost knew then where we were headed. You are an absolute angel and to be having a baby with you is just the absolute icing on the cake. I cannot wait to wake up on Monday morning and call you my WIFE for the very first time and I look forward to a long and happy life together.
So…enjoy tonight, enjoy your time in Cambodia and I thank you all again for coming.
AW KUN J’RARN SOM-NAANG LA’OR
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Plenty of photos here......
Anthony's stuff;
http://www.expat-advisory.com/cambodia/phnom-penh/photo-galleries/Anna's stuff;
http://www.picasaweb.google.com.au/annasimoolivet/CambodiaJustinSWeddingOur Honeymoon;
http://my.imageshack.us/slideshow/my_shows.phpand more to come so stay tuned !