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Betrothal/engagement in LOS


drogon

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Barry,

 

That is pretty much what you do at the 'Amphur of Love' district office in Bangkok. You just collect the proper documents and show up at the government building, hand over the docs and some money and in less than an hour you are on your way with legal marriage documents. You even get a nice ornate marriage certificate, and it is all legal, simple and fairly quick to do. No ceremony, it is merely the legal registering of a marriage.

 

Having the Buddhist ceremony in the woman's city, town or village is good for the woman. It can bring her face (as well as her family) and is a nice thing to do at some point. It's just a family and friends wedding ceremony, a party to show all she is now married and to parade her hubby around, get everyone fed and liquored up, a celebration with music and sanuk. (We won't go into the sin sot aspects as it has been done here plenty of times.)

 

The actual 'legal' wedding is done at the amphur is merely paperwork and a fee.

 

Cent

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Drogon,

 

As CTO pointed out there are many differing customs depenendent on your future spouses background. My wife would best be described as coming from a Middle Class Thai-Chinese family and my personal experiences relate to that.

Photographs

 

It is normal to have a photo shoot a couple of weeks before the actual day a mixture of informal shots and formal (wedding attire) shots so that a large picture of the happy couple and a montage of smaller pictures can be on display at the actual event. Can be done in a studio or out on location, Ancient City and Baeng Saen are popular locations for BKK based couples. Now it is common to put together an AV presentation of the Photos plus the embarrising ones of the bride and groom when they were younger during the night time party.

 

Engagment Party

 

In my case the Betrothal / Engagement occured in the morning, in Chinese it is sometimes referred to as the engagement breakfast. This is for a very small group of people usualy close relatives, that being said there were about 80 guests at ours. Thai Chinese tradition is that the Groom has to prove his worth to the Brides family by "Cutting the Chains", various family members block the path by holding Gold Chains in your way and they are cut with the power of "Red Envelopes" my Father and two Bro-in-Laws from UK were my guides and handed out the envelopes on my behalf, it was good fun to get them involved.

 

Once the bride to be was reached its then 30 minutes or so Tea and sandwiches before the painful offering of the Sinsod. I know there are various opinions about Sinsod but in my case it was all about face, I "showed" 1 Million Baht in crisp 1,000 Baht bills which my father in law to be added another 500,000 to together with the deeds to 10 Rai of land :content: , the Sinsod was back in my bank account within 20 minutes of the photos being taken, sister in law went to the bank made the deposit to my account and gave me the receipt.

 

Exchange of rings took place next, engagement ring first then the wedding bands, worn on the same finger as in the west left hand ring finger. Next the guests came up as couples for the tea ceremony, this is where the Bride and Groom serve them each a small cup of tea and wai them whilst sitting on the floor at a lower level, also customary to offer each guest cheap gifts in our case it was bath towels (wrapped up of course) with more expensive gifts for parents and Siblings, Silk to my Sisters and a Diamong ring to the wifes eldest sister. All the time this is being photographed. Father in Law presented me with a Bunch of Bannanas which is a fertitliy sign. At the end of the engagement ceremony we were escorted to the honeymoon suite by the wifes brother leading the way carrying a red lantern and all the guests in tow, all in all the event lasted about 4 hours.

 

Night time Ceremony

 

This is the main event for where friends are invited but don't expect to see much of it. Bride and Groom greet every guest as they arrive and have photos taken with each of them, 350 guests for us and it lasted about 2 1/2 hours then the MC introduced the Bride and Groom giving a brief history of our resumes (education, place of employment, job title etc) and a description of how we met each other before we entered the reception room. Then it was up on stage for the wedding Banns, the blessings given by selected distinguished guests, in our case it was a well known military general, a retired consular envoy (wifes uncle), the wifes boss (well known BKK business family) and of course my Mother who cried, Mothers always do at weddings. After the speaches were out of the way then it was time for the ceremonial cake cutting, 9 tiers and about 2.5 meters tall. The staff then cut up the cake and put it onto plates and we went around all the tables handing out the cake to the guests and having even more photos taken with each of them.

 

Total Cost

 

Bridal Suite, Rooms for Parents and relatives, the Library Room for the Engagement and the main ballroom with catering for 350 guests does not come cheap at Dusit Thani Hotel, total bill was around 750,000 THB. But being a Thai-Chinese wedding the presents were the red envelopes and the contents of all of them added up to over 850,000 so we made a profit out of it.

 

It was probably the longest and most arduous day of my life but well worth it and one that will forever remain in my memory as a special day. I am not a romantic, far from it as most peple who know me will attest to, last Saturday the wife got a new 16GB thumb drive instead of flowers for valentines day gift,but it made the wife happy and also rebuilt her relationship with her mother who had looked down on the fact that the wife was "Living in Sin" with a Farang.

 

 

As for the legality, as Cent mentioned all that is required is correct paperwork, "Affirmation of Freedom to Marry" for the foreign spouse obtained from your own embassy in BKK and the wifes ID card. Registration fee is 50 THB but we paid an extra 200 THB to have the wedding certificates in a presentaion folder from Bang Rak (The Village of Love). Bang Rak is my nearest city hall, we didn't register there on purpose. Some "Mr Fix-its" will charge upwards of 10,000 THB to assist in marriage registration but it is simple enough to do it yourselves. We only registered ours legaly about 6 months ago, 2 years after the actual ceremony, so that I could get my non-imm visa I was previously on a Biz visa supported by a company. The wifes Brother and Sister have never registered their marriages at city hall.

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mekong,

 

sounds pretty much like all the weddings I've attended in BKK/Phuket including my own - few variants of course - some times monks partake in the morning ceremony - sometimes evening party is sit down dinner sometimes buffet - regardless the bride & groom hardly gets time to notice LOL.

 

a remarkable thing is how quick the (Thai) guests often leave typically after the main event (food, drinks, speech, VDO) even if they just barely arrived, but who cares as long as they contribute (with thick envelopes) LOL :up:

 

Faustian, good luck!

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It was my wife's second marriage and my first and with 3 step children, I felt I didn't need to prove to her family of my intentions to support their daughter and grand-children. We went the Amphur route in Chiang Mai. It took less than two hours there. I'm not the romantic type and, in fact, was married on a Friday and on a plane to the U.S. by myself on Monday. I must admit, I've never understood the importance of a wedding ceremony (or for that matter, the pomp and circumstance of a College graduation exercise, which I also skipped but did go to the college offices to get the diploma). Fortunately, I am the sixth of seven kids and my father and siblings never made a big deal of my going through either ceremony. Having sais that, my wife wants to get married in the U.S. (she doesn't believe the Thai marriage certificate is legal in the U.S.), so I may be going through a marriage ceremony anyway but I can guarentee it will be very low key.

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as for 'stage fright' I say start with the 'photo shoot' & if you 'survive' that day (including the makeup for you!) I promise the wedding party(ies) will be a breeze (well as long as the sin sod & all the 'practical' are sorted LOL!).

the most low key event for me was the official amphur wedding (local one not bangrak I can imagine that one is a bit more crowded/stressed out!) where after the 'signing' we just went to S&P for a bite to 'thank' the sister & friend who joined to sign as witnesses (2 witnesses required unless paying the amphur staff to assist) & that's it just another afternoon apart that the papers enabled the bride to apply for the schengen residency which she by the way got like a breeze too ;)

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Barry,

 

That is pretty much what you do at the 'Amphur of Love' district office in Bangkok. You just collect the proper documents and show up at the government building, hand over the docs and some money and in less than an hour you are on your way with legal marriage documents.

 

Cent

 

Thanks for that. That's how I hoped it would be. I guess I might wear a suit for the photos her bg friends will want to take.. We haven't actually discussed marriage yet, but she dropped a few hints. As for the sin sot, I already suggested that I help her buy a washing machine for her mother, so hopefully that will do it..

 

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