They exchange vows atop water tanker trucks

Yogyakarta (ANTARA) - The scent of jasmine drifted amid the noise of family members and guests filling the courtyard. The morning sun blazed down, but it was not enough to dampen the joy of those celebrating a mass wedding in Bantul.

Dimas Wahyu Saputra and Desya Ayulian Cristianingrum stood alongside ten other couples who that morning prepared to join a procession towards a row of water tanker trucks waiting to carry them to the KUA Sewon religious affairs office in Bantul.

There was no grand wedding dais, no wedding hall with extravagant decorations; instead, the water tanks became the stage for the eleven couples to begin their lives as husband and wife.

Dimas and Desya climbed onto the tank to begin the unusual procession. Cheers and laughter broke out from time to time as guests watched the pair struggle up the tank’s ladder because of the traditional cloth they were wearing. That difficulty only made their wedding day feel all the more different.

The mass wedding of eleven couples beginning their new lives together took place amid a downward trend in marriage numbers in the Special Region of Yogyakarta, a tendency that has persisted for the past seven years.

A continuing decline