MARRIED IN SAMBAS

I am so proud, excited and overwhelmed to share the story of my son’s marriage with you. It has been an exciting few days in West Kalimantan on the tropical island of Borneo.

There is something unbelievably precious about seeing your children grow into adults, living their best lives and making wonderful choices. I am immensely proud of the young man Liam has become. He is creating a beautiful life and doing so with a lovely young woman by his side – Erika.

IN AUGUST 2022 THEY ANNOUNCED THEIR ENGAGEMENT

I can’t begin to express my level of excitement at this news. Erika was now wearing my mother’s emerald ring, polished up and fitted to perfection. My mother must be smiling down on them, thrilled to be a small part of their lives. Like so many brides before her, Erika wanted to be married surrounded by her family so in February 2023 our whole family travelled to a little town in North Western Indonesian Borneo called Sambas. We were the only white folk in town – quite the celebrities for the space of a few days.

With language and cultural barriers quite firmly in place, we were not in a position to offer much in the way of practical assistance but instead were given front row seats to a culturally fascinating wedding.

TIME RUNS DIFFERENTLY IN SAMBAS

I am a planner. Anybody that’s ever met me can tell you that. But it was not my wedding to plan and we weren’t given access to the running sheet so everything came as a surprise. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a Sambas wedding it’s to be prepared.

Erika’s family heritage is Hakka Chinese so the traditions and customs of their wedding reflected that. Her day began at 2:30am when she got up in time to be ready for the hair and makeup artist who accompanied her for all the morning ceremonies as well as the evening reception. She did a jolly good job. Erika’s hair and makeup was spectacular.

According to custom, the couple must not spend their last night together so Liam came and spent the night at our hotel – complete with red lanterns that stayed on all night in his room as part of the good luck symbolism. In the morning he had a bit of a sleep in compared to Erika – he didn’t need to get ready until 5am.

At 5:44am I got a hurried message asking if we were awake and saying that apparently my husband and I need to assist him with the dressing. Lucky I’d already had my shower so I managed to put my dress and heels on, slap on a bit of makeup and then twist my wet hair on top of my head, all in the space of five minutes. My husband moaned and groaned as he crawled out of bed to whip on his suit pants and fancy shirt.

WE WENT TO THE HONEYMOON SUITE TO HELP HIM DRESS

As we got to his room we learned it was not just Liam with us – there was a videographer, a director, my other son as a photographer, a translator and the wedding officiant. Three’s a crowd. I’m not sure what seven is.

Liam was wearing his pants, shirt and shoes, his freshly shaven face looking so young once more. Laid out carefully on the bed were his suit jacket, tie, white gloves, a bunch of flowers and the traditional Chinese red pockets (envelopes). The videoing was very important and carefully orchestrated by the director. Liam put on his tie then was instructed to stand in front of the mirror straightening it. His shirt was checked. Then Mick and I both helped him on with the jacket, doing his buttons, before placing one glove each on his hands. Next the red envelopes were placed into his pockets and we handed him the flowers.

Liam then presented us with a kiss on each cheek and a bow, whispering under his breath that it was a most humiliating experience. Bowing is not a tradition in our family.

BUT FOR HIS BRIDE AND HER CUSTOMS HE WAS WILLING TO GO TO GREAT LENGTHS

Once all fully dressed we left the room and the three of us walked arm and arm down the old grand staircase of the Hotel Pantura Jaya, out to the waiting car that was decorated with floral pieces.

As I was busy photographing Liam getting ready to go and greet his bride he slipped into the car and raised his middle white gloved finger in silent defiance of the morning’s rituals. The car drove off and we were once again left to our own devices, completely unsure of what would be happening next, or when.

We head back to our room to await whatever happened next while Liam drove to Erika’s parents house to await the first tea ceremony. He waited in the car until exactly 7am when he was escorted inside to see her for the first time on her wedding day. She was dressed in a figure hugging white wedding dress, ornate heeled wedding shoes and a veil. Not normally heavily made up, Liam could barely recognise his wife. She looked a picture of perfection.

Liam and Erika then participated in the tea ceremony that was for her family members only – married family members. I believe her parents, grandmother and aunt were gathered together to be honoured and to witness the couple.

ONCE THAT CEREMONY WAS COMPLETED IT WAS OUR TURN

I had asked Liam to let me know when they were heading back to us so we could be prepared. But his wifi connection didn’t send the message in time so the first I knew it was our turn was about 8am with the sound of his voice coming down the corridor. It was unfortunate timing… my husband had just gone to sit on the toilet. But I was now ready with my hair no longer pulled up with wet strands on top of my head. I’d had time to dry it a little and let it down, my bright pink fascinator stuffed onto the side.

With a most undignified start to the tea ceremony, the couple and entourage waited casually outside our hotel room while my husband got himself organised. We then invited them into our room for the ceremony which turned out to be very brief. We were seated on the large white wicker chairs with the giant burgundy king bed behind us. Liam and Erika stood in front of us while the makeup girl held a tray with two tiny tumblers and some lemon tea. They poured some tea for us then handed it to us to drink, bowing as they went. Lots of conversations were happening with Erika and the officiant but we didn’t understand.

Once the tea was drunk we all headed back to Liam and Erika’s room where we were instructed to pick up one of the red lanterns each and at the appropriate time hand one to each of them. When they were holding the lanterns the four of us collectively turn them on, symbolising the lighting of their marriage.

THEY WERE NOW FORMALLY MARRIED ACCORDING TO THE CUSTOMS

And there was nothing left to do until the reception. The videographer and my photographer son got busy taking photos of Erika in the corner window and then the makeup artist carefully helped her out of the veil. We all returned to our rooms to get dressed back into our day clothes.

We met Liam and Erika for breakfast (more rice and noodles) and then together we all walked into town to run a few errands. It was 29 degrees Celsius with beastly humidity so we arrived back at the hotel drenched in sweat. Time for shower number two.

We all pottered around for the rest of the day with instructions to be ready for the ceremony at 5pm. I was catching on though – I told my husband and two sons to be ready by 4:30 just in case.

About 4:30 we saw them coming down the corridor heading to the reception in the hotel restaurant. Erika dressed in a second white wedding dress with a long train. I threw on another coat of lip gloss, grabbed my phone and we headed next door. At the foot of the stairs was a giant red sign welcoming everyone and wishing Liam and Erika a happy marriage. There was a long table with lots of little things on it that remain a mystery to me. At the end of the table was a large box with a hole in it for people to donate their red pockets – all filled with some amount of money, a contribution from the guest to the wedding.

At the top of the stairs Liam and Erika were lined up with all her family members shaking the hands of every guest as they arrived. We were ushered into the queue to shake hands. By the end of the evening the tables had 603 guests. I’m not sure we shook everyone’s hands as they arrived, but we definitely shook several hundred.

THE BUZZ IN THE ROOM WAS ELECTRIC

There were 67 tables set for nine people spread through the room, all covered in white table cloths. Down the centre was a walkway with coloured glass lights on the floor and an enormous archway of pink flowers. It all led up to the huge stage with a backdrop of more pink flowers, a three tiered cake with lights and a green sequinned MC. Tucked in the corner of the stage was the karaoke machine.

When the hand shaking was done we were all lined up in pairs to walk down the centre of the room to the stage. Erika’s parents led the way, then my husband and I followed with my two boys and the rest of Erika’s family. The extended family members went to the reserved family tables and then we lined up across the stage with Erika’s parents, my husband always to my right and then watched as Liam and Erika walked together hand in hand under the pink floral archway to step up onto the stage.

My heart was just filled with joy to see them, surrounded by 600 people with their phones out and applauding. They were ushered to stand in the centre of the stage while the MC was making announcements in Indonesian. Everyone’s names we’re being announced and eventually we heard our own and waved to the adoring crowd. We felt a little like royalty, waving out to the 67 tables all videoing us, the videographer right in the centre taking it all in.

When the waving and announcements were done we headed down to the main table where I sat next to Erika’s grandmother. Neither of us had a word of each other’s language but I tried to communicate how proud she must feel of her beautiful granddaughter.

Over the duration of the next three hours, nine courses of food were brought out – fish ball soup, battered prawns, chicken satay, chicken curry, beef curry, sweet chilli fish, sea cucumber vegetable platter – and two others I can’t remember. Followed by a large bowl of lychees. The volume of food was overwhelming. The curries delicious. The sea cucumber too scary for me to taste test. Every table in the room had bottles of orange juice, lemonade and beer. By the end of the night almost all the beer remained. We found it delightfully refreshing to be at a large crowd of people who weren’t intoxicated. The evening was just fun and laughter and high energy and excitement.

THE GREEN SEQUINNED MAN MC’D ALL NIGHT

For three hours we listened to Indonesian karaoke. Everyone who arrived had an opportunity to register to sing and a great many people were keen. The MC would look through his list and call a name. The lucky person would then grab the microphone and follow the words on the screen. Most singers were presented with a red envelope by the family and some lucky singers were also given an empty bottle filled with some cash.

Later in the celebrations Liam was coerced on stage by a singer to start dancing, his five year old nephew joining him with great enthusiasm. All the rest of the male wedding party members were dragged on to stage to dance, including my other two boys. I definitely had my video out for that. Nobody could coerce my husband to get up there but I have wonderful footage of him with a large belly laugh spread across his face. Eventually all the women were on stage dancing too, including Erika and baby Sofia. Liam and Erika joined hands and he spun her around.

The joy radiating from everyone’s face was absolutely contagious. Someone even managed to hand the microphone to Erika and she joined in the singing. Liam turned down the chance to sing, but stayed holding her hand, dancing away.

When the song ended we all returned to our seats and were then instructed to fill our plastic cups with the drink of our choice. Erika and Liam were invited back onto stage with her parents, my husband and myself. The MC talked a lot and then we all clinked glasses and raised them in a toast to the audience. We finished our drinks, returned to our seats, and the night started to wrap up. Gradually all the hand shaking began again as each of the guests began to leave. My white boys were all photographed in selfies with adoring fans. Mick and I shook another couple of hundred hands and gradually the room quietened down.

We spent some time gathering everyone together for a variety of formal photos, all of which were videoed as well, the director carefully choreographing everybody. When the photos were over, the room dispensing, Liam and Erika held hands and walked back down the floral archway waving goodbye to the cameras as they left.

AND WITH ALL THAT THE WEDDING CEREMONY AND RECEPTION CAME TO AN END

It is a surreal experience to be participating in events that have foreign customs in a foreign language. We were very much swept along for the ride. The symbols of respect are incredibly touching – the bowing, holding hands and kissing of cheeks. Symbols it would be nice to see more of in our own cultures. The symbolism of the lights shining on this new couple also touched me enormously. I truly wish them all the best for all their years ahead.

Liam and Erika looked so special and so in love. It warms the cockles of my heart to know that the little boy I held in my arms has grown up into such a magnificent young man. And that he too can now embark on a lifelong journey with a partner at his side and their baby in their arms.

I am so thrilled and honoured to have had the opportunity to travel to Sambas and see them formalise their commitment to each other. The memories of this Valentine’s Day will stay with me for a lifetime.