A simple, complete royal Javanese wedding ceremony

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 04/02/2005 2:15 PM | Life

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post/Yogyakarta

Most people perceive Javanese traditional wedding ceremonies, especially ones held for royal weddings a palace, to be drawn-out, exhausting and meticulous, despite the pomp and splendor.

Yet, in fact, to have such a grand wedding ceremony yourself does not need to be exhausting, while at the same time maintaining the sacred values of the rituals, and adhering to the pakem, or agreed reference, for conducting the ceremony.

What was presented during the Wedding Fair 2005 held last weekend at the Santika Jogja Hotel here is such an example.

Called the Paes Ageng Yogyakarta-style wedding, which is a simplified version of the wedding ritual performed at the Yogyakarta Palace that takes days to finish, this one took only some 45 hours to conduct. Yet, it had all the processions that such a traditional wedding ceremony requires.

""The main idea of holding this fair, apart from maintaining local culture, is indeed to provide people with inspirations that Javanese traditional wedding does not have to be meticulous and tiring,"" the hotel's public relations officer Erma Wheny Hertuti told The Jakarta Post.