Slow Progress
Aug 10th, 2008 by Diar
Plenty of things (that, in point of fact, includes conflicts and its relatives) got in the way, so in a negative way to say: we don’t undergo too much progress in our wedding planning and preparations so far.
At least in early July we had the ‘official’ marriage-proposal from Mr. Husband-to-be’s family. Well, he did propose to my father in early January (and my religion actually considers the one done by the concerning man is already an ‘official’ proposal), but it is customary in my country that the man’s family have to come as well to meet the future bride’s family. Even though my religion doesn’t recognize such thing as an engagement between a man and a woman, most people here regard this kind of ceremonial proposing thing as an engagement party or something.
Traditionally, heaps of things must be done for the proposal ceremony. There’s a practice in my country in which the man’s family (this could mean ten or more family members) come to the woman’s family’s residence to get to know each other ‘formally’. Each family usually has one person to act as the representative ’spokesperson’ in the ceremony. And normally, both sides of family will talk also about the exact ‘when’. What’s more, our tradition here dictates us to have this ‘gift-giving’ thing. We call it seserahan or antaran, that—to my knowledge—symbolize something, but I just don’t know what it is exactly. The gifts (’gift’ isn’t really the right term, as there’s the actual gift for the wedding called mahar, but I can’t think of another label) are commonly rings (sometimes for both the engagement and the wedding), fabrics for the couple’s wedding reception outfit, toiletries, shoes, etc. Above and beyond, the woman’s family has to serve meals (a lot of them) for all the guests.
Mr. H (not for ‘husband’, but his initial is H) and I… (drum roll)… chose to skip most of the things mentioned beforehand.
Ten or more family members—(not) checked.
Mr. H’s immediate family members live in another city (Jakarta, which is across the ocean, just so you know—and plane tickets are expensive), so only his mother and one of his sisters came, plus his two cousins who live in Pontianak. Most of my family live in Jakarta and other cities in Java Island as well, so there were only me, my dad, and my stepmom (oh, plus my baby brother). But as I’ve told initially, there were some light conflicts (or cold war, I may say) in my own family, so apparently my dad cancelled his plan to make at least ten people (although not immediate family) come to the’ceremony’.
Antaran—(not) checked.
Having a wedding, I comprehend, needs loads of cash. I’m not making money currently, so I depend on my family and Mr. H for the wedding budget. No doubt that a wedding reception sucks masses of money, so I didn’t want to add another burden for Mr. H (and my family, too, of course) to give antaran whatsoever (and I truly didn’t want anything, not even rings). My religion doesn’t bother with this antaran thing, why should we? (with all due respect to man-made tradition). Recently, my mom called and blamed Mr. H and I (she only talked to me, by the way) for not undertaking the ‘right’ procedure of the proposal ceremony. And I can assure you that even though they didn’t give any comments, my dad and stepmom must talked about this ‘outside-the-tradition’ thing behind my back.
Loads of meals for the guest—(not) checked.
My stepmom only served teas and cakes (there’s a story behind it that I can’t tell why).
The ‘when’ is finally set—(not) checked.
At first we wanted April next year, and then we changed our mind to January as it just seemed nice (and not too long). My dad kind of ‘depends’ on my one and only older brother (who lives far away from Pontianak), so he asked us to wait for my brother’s approval and everything. But even after he was here, no significant talk popped up. Until a day before he got back again to where he lives now, he told us that it was up to me to pick any month I wanted to (why didn’t he say that much earlier?).
See, slow progress. But at least, it is still called a progress.