A North Sumatra Wedding

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I went to a wedding last Saturday.  The groom is the little brother of my good friend, Andan.  It took us about 2 hours to make the drive.  We got there about 9:20 am.  They had been waiting for us to start.  It was not a large event, not more than 50 people.  Uncles and aunts were present as were many brothers and sisters. 

 In a small house, in the living was set up the classic bride and groom throne.   After the religious ceremony, this is where they will sit for the adat or local customs part of the celebration.  Next too it was a three tiered presentation of food stuffs.  I  knocked one of the eggs off of this early in the ceremony but no seemed to b e upset by this fact  the groom later knocked it over, the only thing that I noticed was that the eggs smelled pretty bad and that later people were eating them and giving them to children.

We all sat on the ground in a circle around the edge of the living room   In the center of the room was a cushion. The groom was sitting behind the cushion.  The bride was in another room.  Women sat on one side of the room and men on the other, but at two places in the room people were sitting next to a member of the opposite sex.  The women were all wearing jilbad or some interpretation of the Muslim head covering expect for 1 or 2 teen girls. 

 The cleric (religious leader who performed the wedding) started by addressing the wali – a male member of the bride’s family who speaks on her behalf; in this case her older brother. His role was to “give her away” to be married (nikahkan).  It was important that the wali say the oath perfectly and he was made to repeated it twice so that he got it right.

 The groom then got up on the cushion to “accept” his bride. At this point, he paid the bride wealth or “wedding gold” (mas kawin), a symbolic amount of money, just Rp 50,000, which would be the same as if you spent $30 in the United States.  Because it was paid in cash, the cleric had the bride’s brother take it to her immediately. 

 They recited the first chapter of the Quran (al-Fatihah) as a prayer twice.  Next came the groom’s statement of acceptance.  It was critical that this part of the ceremony was also done perfectly.  He was so nervous.  He made lots of mistakes and had to repeat his part several times until he got it right.  They even stopped the ceremony and prayed that God  would help him get it right. 

 After the groom had “accepted” the bride, she came out  and sat next to the cleric and in front of the groom.  At this point, I think they were legally married, and it would have been improper (according to what I have teen told elsewhere) for them to see each other before this point. 

  Then the groom swore a vow to her that essentially laid out the grounds for divorce

1. leave her for 2 years
2. not give her basic necessities of life, including sharing the same bed, for three months.
3. abuse her physically or emotionally.’

If any of these end up being true, she can take the case to court and a fee of Rp 10,000 and get a divorce. 

 After a short sermon that explained the groom’s vow, they signed the marriage certificate.  The bride never gave a similar vow nor did her representative. 

 Then they greeted the guests.  On their knees,  they took the hands of the person and lifted to their forehead.  First it was the older people, especially the grandmothers and mothers.  Then they went around the room.  For older people it was as described above, for equals just a handshake, and for children it was reversed.  The bride put my hands to her  head, the groom did not. 

After the religious ceremony it was time to eat and during this there was the Muamat (or welcome song) sung in Arabic and was said to be part of Arabic customs.  My friend’s daughter laughed at my pained expression from he overloud speakers.

The women went to an adjacent house, carrying a fancy thing – looked like another Bali – but apparently this was just so that they could go talk by themselves, there was no special ceremony.  I saw the groom sitting with friends during the eating, but the bride was no where to be seen  -- most likely she was changing into her traditional cultural (adat) costume which was much more complicate than his.   When I looked in on the women to see if the bride was with them (she was not), I was invited in to sit and talk with the women. 

Then came the Tepung Tawar ceremony

The bride and groom were dressed in traditional royal attire.  They get to be king and queen for the day.  They had a piece of  batik cloth across their laps,  one by one members of her family came up and took a handful of rice, flower bud and petals and spread it over them –laps, heads, shoulders  and the guest shook hands with bride and groom.  The women often kissed the bride (on the checks in the style of cheek pressed to cheek style).  This was done to bless them as a couple.  First all the members of her family did this and then all of the members of his family (including me, as his older brother’s friend). 

After this came the advice giving.  Representatives of each family gave speeches abut how to be a good husband and  good wife from both sides of the family.  Traditionally this could go on for 3 or four hours, but my friend announced that we had to go back to Medan, 2 hours away for another celebration.  So it was only about an hour of advice giving and then we ate again.  And then we went home.