JP/17/WEDDIN

JP/17/WEDDIN

A simple, complete royal Javanese wedding ceremony

Sri Wahyuni The Jakarta Post/Yogyakarta

Most people perceive Javanese traditional wedding ceremonies, especially ones held for royal weddings a palace, to be drawn- out, exhausting and meticulous, despite the pomp and splendor.

Yet, in fact, to have such a grand wedding ceremony yourself does not need to be exhausting, while at the same time maintaining the sacred values of the rituals, and adhering to the pakem, or agreed reference, for conducting the ceremony.

What was presented during the Wedding Fair 2005 held last weekend at the Santika Jogja Hotel here is such an example.

Called the Paes Ageng Yogyakarta-style wedding, which is a simplified version of the wedding ritual performed at the Yogyakarta Palace that takes days to finish, this one took only some 45 hours to conduct. Yet, it had all the processions that such a traditional wedding ceremony requires.

"The main idea of holding this fair, apart from maintaining local culture, is indeed to provide people with inspirations that Javanese traditional wedding does not have to be meticulous and tiring," the hotel's public relations officer Erma Wheny Hertuti told The Jakarta Post.

A Javanese traditional wedding, according to Artyandari of the Yogyakarta-based Asri Wedding Service that performed the Paes Ageng wedding ceremony last Saturday, consists at least 12 main processions, each of which has its own meaning.

"It's not that we believe that the processions are a guarantee of a good marriage. Rather, they (the processions) represent symbols on how to make the marriage a good one," Artyandari, who is finishing his post graduate (S2) study on humanities at Gadjah Mada University's School of Cultural Sciences, explained.

The ritual begins with the tebus pisang sanggan and kembar mayang processions during which an elder member of the couple's family brings a bunch of bananas and other accessories to the location of the wedding, followed by another elder who brings in twin decorations made of mainly young, yellow, coconut leaves called kembar mayang.

"The processions symbolize the cleansing of the path that has to be passed through by the bride and groom, which is the task of the elder members of both families," Artyandari said.

It is then followed by the panggih procession during which the bride is met by the groom to undergo another series of processions including balang-balangan gantal (throwing betel leaves at each other), ranupada (where the bride washes the groom's feet), and the egg smashing ritual, before both are escorted to the dais to perform other processions.

In the balang-balangan gantal procession, the bride throws betel leaves at the groom's chest, while the groom throws them on to the bride's forehead. It symbolizes the bride's hope for a "wide-chested" (patient) husband and the groom's hope for a mature, thoughtful wife.

The ranupada procession symbolizes the bride's willingness to be a devoted wife and to help her husband through difficult times.

Egg smashing, which is done by the bride's makeup woman, symbolizes the breaking of both the bride's and groom's mind and thought as an expression of their readiness to enter into the new episode of their life. It also symbolizes the couple's readiness to raise a family.

The couple is then escorted, walking side-by-side, to the dais to perform kacar-kucur, dhahar klimah, water drinking, and sungkeman processions.

The kacar-kucur procession, in which the groom pours a mixture of various beans, yellow rice, and coins into the bride's hands, symbolizes the husband's duty to support the family.

The dhahar klimah procession during which the groom feeds balls of rice and cooked chicken liver to his bride, symbolizes the groom's pledge to become a devoted husband who will love his wife with all his heart. (The Javanese word for liver is hati, which is also the word for heart).

Both are then required to drink clear water to symbolize the clearness of their hearts, thoughts and minds to live their life.

After this, it's then the turn of the bride's parents to perform the mapag besan (fetching the in-laws) procession.

They fetch the groom's parents, seat them on prepared seats next to the dais and allow them join the next procession of sungkeman, where the bride and groom show respect to their parents by kneeling and pressing their faces onto their parents' knees.

The last procession is nglorot manten, where the bride and groom are allowed to leave the wedding to go to their prepared room.

"For Muslim couples, we also prepare Muslim costumes for this particular Paes Ageng wedding ceremony," Artyandari said.

Apart from the royal Paes Ageng wedding ceremony, the two-day fair also presented various selections of simplified, yet fashionable kebaya (Javanese traditional dresses) and skirts specially designed for modern, practical people to wear on their wedding.

"We offer alternatives for those who don't want to be troubled too much with details," said designer Tommy Tri Gunawan, who presented some of his wedding kebaya and dress designs.

Tommy said that with such designs one would not need hours to do the makeup as the kebaya and skirts had been designed in such a way so that they could be put on in much the same way as ordinary dresses.