Young start to scale down wedding day

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.