Young start to scale down wedding day

Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Arranging a traditional wedding ceremony is the dream of many, the upholding of custom and an auspicious blessing for the couple's future.

Putting on that grand wedding, whether it is traditional or modern, is a matter of pride, not only for the married couple, but also for their parents, to show that their children are marrying well and that they have not forgotten their roots.

Some parents claim they are becoming more flexible about wedding plans.

"I'm a Javanese man and if it's possible I want my daughter's wedding to be held according to Javanese tradition, but it doesn't have to be so. I personally think the important part of a wedding ceremony is the religious blessing," said Leo, a retired government official.

The desire to assure a special and memorable day crosses all income groups. The parents of soldier "Budi" sold land and borrowed money from friends to pay the Rp 20 million package, including a VCD of the event, for their son's wedding in Bandung.

Making those dreams come true is big business.

Companies that offer an entire package of services -- from the invitations to the reception arrangements and documentation of the big day -- are doing a roaring trade. Many provide "traditional" wedding packages, with consultation based on the particular ethnic group of the bride and groom.

Photo shops, for example, have branched out as "photo/bridal salons" to gain some of the spoils. Some, such as the popular King Foto, offer "The Wedding" packet, promising "a personal but artistic nuance" in the documentation of the couple's special day.

That is for a DVD of the wedding, costing from Rp 7 million upward. To have everything taken care of -- including the wedding attire, car and cake -- ranges from Rp 28 million to Rp 60 million, depending on the package.

Others also getting in on the action are wedding planners and bridal gown designers, with some fashion designers making a small, but profitable sideline of wedding dresses.

Yet there are some young couples today who are bucking tradition by keeping the affair as modest as possible. Unlike their parents' generation, they want to put their commitment and love first, at the expense of all the ceremony.

Some of them, particularly Chinese-Indonesians, do the unheard of by forgoing big receptions for a simple service and a newspaper announcement that the marriage has taken place.

For others, it's harder to say no to parental pressure for a lavish wedding.

"At first, I didn't want a traditional wedding ceremony or a party at all. I wanted it to be a simple, special occasion shared only by people who are dear to me, but this plan was strongly criticized by my family," said PR executive Umay.

"I later agreed to hold a wedding ceremony, but on the condition it had to be simple and not too expensive. That's why we decided to hold both our akad nikah (religious ceremony) and syukuran (wedding reception) at a mosque."

Modern times have brought another variable into the already complicated business of getting married. With greater demographic mobility, some couples from different ethnic groups decide that it makes sense to keep things simple by going with a generic "national" ceremony instead of trying to decide which tradition should take prominence.

"My fiance and I come from different ethnic groups and we have decided to wed in a 'national' ceremony to avoid complicated and lengthy arrangements," said a reporter Chrissy, who herself comes from a multiethnic family.

She explained that she would be wearing a modern variation of the kebaya traditional dress, while her future husband would wear a tuxedo at the church, before receiving friends and relatives at a wedding party in South Jakarta.

Small-wedding organizers have seized on the growing demand for scaled down traditional ceremonies to expand their business.

"Apart from Sunda, Surakarta and Yogyakarta-style ceremonies, the Batak traditional ceremony is also quite popular," said owner of Griya Busana and Dekorasi wedding organizer Yustine Aprianto.

An anthropologist from the University of Indonesia, Parsudi Suparlan, said that younger couples were choosing the "national" ceremonies not only because of their lower expense.

"Apart from that, young couples would likely feel that it's artificial to go through some of the parts of a traditional ceremony, whose meaning they do not really understand," he said.

However, the omission of certain parts of a traditional ceremony does not reflect the complete elimination of traditional values in the modern era, he added.

"Traditions are created to play certain social functions. Old values can still be relevant and those which aren't will disappear," he explained.

For young Indonesians getting wed today, tradition still wins out at the end of the day, but they are also being heard.