A Javanese Wedding

An extravagant ceremony to rival any American wedding. I've been told this is the closing ceremony and that various others have already taken place for example, the previous day there was a religious ceremony at a church. Chairs are set up in rows facing a long aisle that is covered with white petals. At the end is a raised stage with flowers and male and female marriage statues at the front. On the stage is a beautiful carved and upholstered bench in the middle. On either side are a couple of chairs. The bride is escorted in with an entourage of women and two little girls. The women are dressed in traditional Javanese formal wear of a lace, sequined long sleeve tunic with a corset (or silk top) underneath and a batik sarong very form fitting with paper fan type pleats in front and heels. The tunics are all a hydrangea green and the sarongs shades of browns. The bride is wearing a similar outfit but her lace, sequined garment is floor length with a tail that is being carried by one of the women. Her mother is wearing cream. The brides hair is in a sculptured up do wrapped in a crochet of real flowers with golden antenna-like flowers sticking up out of the sculptured bun and woven flowers hang scarf-like from her hair asymmetrically shorter on one side and to her waist on the other. Her hairline is painted into her forehead in a waving pattern. She walks extremely slowly, the two girls in front and the entourage behind until they arrive at the stage where she takes a set at the bench. Now we wait, what seems like a very long time for the groom. Alas, he appears. All the men are dressed in typical Javanese formal wear of sarongs (similar to the womens but not form fitting) with a jacket that is longer in the front than the back where you can see a type of cumber bun with a kris tucked into it and a round batik cap. The jacket front usually has buttons, no collar and a medallion and chain hanging horizontally. The groom's jacket is very ornate with beading and sequins. The bride stands and now they approach each other with their entourages in tow. They meet at the middle where there is a plate with some greens and an egg. And a bowl of water and aromatic flowers. When they reach each other he takes his shoes off and steps carefully on the egg breaking it and she washes his feet. There hands are then placed together, a red shawl is placed around their shoulders and they walk to the stage together and sit at the bench. Gamelan music is playing and the master of ceremonies begins to read blessings written by the parents. Food begins to come around and people eat and talk while the ceremony proceeds. When the dessert is served, shortly after the ceremony is over and the bride and groom walk down the aisle and wait outside to say thank you to all of their guests.
My friend Furquon was the one that brought me but he was playing in the gamelan and I was asked to come in and sit down so I did and spoke to a professor of shadow puppetry who is the neighbor of the bride. He and his wife were dressed in the formal wear as part of what seemed to me was the bridal party. Guests were wearing different things, everyone was very well dressed except kids older than 5 into the young teens who were wearing T-shirts and jeans. Everyone else looked very nice. I felt a little under dressed in my long cotton dress and flats. Luckily a couple and the man's brother invited me over to sit with them. The two men knew English the one man's wife didn't but she was so happy for me to be sitting with them. They explained to me that everyone wants to know who I am but they are too shy to say Hello so that I should smile a lot. They took tons of pictures with me and when we were leaving people were smiling and shaking my hand. At first I didn't know how they felt because I felt really isolated and I would smile at people if I noticed them looking at me, but they would just look away, I guess out of embarrassment. I even noticed the photographer taking pictures of me and so I turned and smiled for the picture making it obvious that I knew he was taking pictures of me and then he asked if I would take a picture with him.