Wedding Crashers

On Sunday night, Tu called and asked if Olivia and I would like to go to dinner with her. We agreed and she and another teacher picked us up around 5:30pm. We had no idea where we were going and got even more confused as we headed out of town. We tried to ask where we were going and she started talking about Kanchanaburi which is about an hour from U-Thong. Were we going to have dinner in Kanchanaburi??? We were totally confused. Then she started talking about weddings and asking how to say bride and groom in English. Apparently one of her former students was getting married. We thought she was just making conversation but about 10 minutes later we pulled into this park which was lit up with neon lights and lanterns. Turns out it was the wedding she was just talking about. 

We pulled up to the parking lot and they got out of the car. Olivia and I started to protest because we were in no way dressed for a wedding. I was in khaki capri shorts and dirty slip on shoes. Tu insisted it was ok and led us into the wedding where we were immediately taken to greet the bride and groom and take pictures with them. Totally awkward. We then were taken to a table. There were at least a thousand people there. Apparently there is no dress code for a Thai wedding and we were not the only people who were dressed causally (thank goodness). There were quite a few people in jeans and flip-flops.  We sat down and drank some soda while Tu chatted away with some of her friends in Thai. 15 minutes later we got up to leave. Olivia and I couldn’t help but start laughing as we had just crashed a Thai wedding. We got back in the car and kept driving. We realized that we were indeed heading to Kachanaburi.

About an hour later we pulled up to a really nice hotel and realized that we were going to be attending another wedding. Really? Two weddings in one night? If I had known, I definitely would have dressed more appropriately. So there we were ready to crash the second wedding of the evening. This wedding was definitely fancier. We sat down and actually ate dinner as we listened to speeches from the mother and father of the bride. This wedding was also quite large and had at least 500 people. Dinner was delicious and they kept bringing us more and more food.

I learned that the actual wedding ceremony is held in a Buddhist temple. After the ceremony they host a big reception. Apparently they don’t care who comes or what their guests wear. The reception was pretty much the same as America with toasts, speeches and cake cutting. There was no dancing however. After the cake cutting the bride and groom left and the guests immediately followed.

Can’t believe I crashed two Thai weddings in one night!

After we left the wedding Tu said that we were going to go see the “bridge over the river Kwae”. We tried to explain to her that we had already seen it during orientation week and we didn’t really need to see it again. It was 9 pm by this point and we were both tired. She insisted that we go saying that the bridge had “light and sound”. We kept trying to tell her we didn't need to go but she drove us there anyway. Turns out there was a huge festival (of course there would be a festival) at the bridge celebrating the end of WWII in Thailand. The bridge was lit up and there was a huge market and live music. There was also a big carnival but we did not go  because it was packed and we couldn’t get anywhere near it. We still walked around the market for a while and enjoyed the celebration. We didn’t get home until about midnight.  Yay for random Sunday night adventures! 

Some things I have learned:

-I am confused about 99% of the time here in Thailand. I never know what is going on.

-There is a festival for just about everything. Thai’s love to celebrate.

-Going out with Tu is always an adventure