A marriage of weddings and traffic jams

JAKARTA (JP): Jakartans, instead of attempting to avoid traffic jams and standing in queues, have adapted themselves creatively in their social lives. An elite wedding in Jakarta, for example, is not just a chance to wish a young couple a happy life together, but it is also a golden opportunity for standing in line.

Recently, ominous-looking envelopes containing invitations arrived at the homes of friends. On a full sheet of paper, engraved in gold and embossed in a floral pattern, the invitation respectfully requested their presence at a wedding reception to be held at the Jakarta Convention Center's Assembly Hall. Unknown to the hosts, a friend arranged for me to go along, uninvited. "Go" is probably not the right word.

The bride and the groom were supposed to be a "king and queen", or at least like "heads of state" for that evening. For the guests, however, the trials began with their arrival in Senayan, where the cars formed such a long line from the outer entrance to the grounds that it took nearly an hour to reach the door of the hall. The exclusive invitations had apparently not only reached my friends, but 4,999 other people, whose arrival coincided with those of the cars of visitors to an industrial exhibition and busses for T-shirted participants in a nearby youth rally.

Immediately on leaving the car, we met up with a row of advertising displays masquerading as floral panel arrangements. The good wishes for the bride and groom, spelled out in plastic foam, were nearly dwarfed by the names of the donor companies and families. We wondered idly if they were placed around the entrance according to the commercial or personal rank of the donors.

A blast of cool air welcomed us to the hall, and we were directed to one of two long tables where the guest books were manned by ladies in long, formal black gowns, the fuschia tops held by spaghetti straps in the case of the younger ones, or by something more substantial for the more matronly. They were the welcoming committee and, besides letting us sign the guest book, they handed each guest a small thank-you packet. Thus armed with our party favor, we joined an imposing line stretching across the marbled hall, waiting to present our congratulations to the couple whose official wedding portrait, strategically placed on an easel near the entrance, reminded us who we had come to see.

But first we waited in line.

Minutes and more minutes passed before we could even glimpse the celebrants on stage in the adjoining ballroom. If we were lucky, we met friends who were also enduring the wait. Sometimes an acquaintance passed by, emerging from the ballroom. Fortunately, there was other entertainment. A video team provided shots of a band with its vocalists, to accompany the guests at the hall. Lest we forgot what we were waiting for, the crew turned spotlights on the wedding couple and their parents as they greeted the guests far ahead of us in the line, and we could see on the giant screen in the hall how radiant the bride was, the proud look of the groom and their well-dressed parents.

We climbed up the steps to the stage carefully, mindful of the video camera which might be transmitting our ascent to the silver screens outside, and shook the hands of the groom's parents, those of the couple (both still amazingly radiant) and of the bride's parents. Having barely had time to utter our congratulations for the happy occasion, we descend to the ballroom floor.

My friend had wisely chosen to eat before leaving home; usually there was another long line at the buffet -- who knew how many Jakartan wedding guests fainted from hunger before the completion of the ceremony? This time, the hosts had decentralized the food service, and we stopped at one of the dessert tables for a snack.

The wedding cake, constructed four meters high, dominated the ballroom. The layers of cake were poised on rows and columns and arcades of milk glasses. As we left, aides presented company calendars; not a memento featuring the wedding couple, but the family's firm.

Fleeing to the car, about to join another long line of traffic on our way home, my friend spotted a young couple whose wedding she had attended a few months ago. "Well, at your wedding," she recalls, "there was such a crowd, I think we stood in line for hours."

The newlyweds exchange proud glances. "Why, thank you so much!"

-- Mary Winters