The janur hangs in front of wedding venues in Indonesia.
By Sasmaya Soekardano for Coconuts Ibukota
If you’re over 25 and living in Indonesia, then it’s likely that you have spent many of your weekends attending the wedding receptions of friends and family members this past month. It’s not that we’re not happy for the lucky couples, but attending Indonesian weddings can be a real drag after a while, especially for us guests.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Indonesian wedding receptions generally follow a particular routine: you arrive at the reception, congratulate the couple and their parents, eat, try to socialize amid the noisy crowd, and leave. Yet it seems we never learn that attending Indonesian weddings can be quite a hassle for the following reasons:
Dress codes and makeup
Wedding receptions are a huge a hassle for guests, particularly bridesmaids. We’re generally required to wear elaborate uniforms, but we have to get the dresses made ourselves and pay for them out of our own pockets. The bride usually only sends us the fabric and the design of the dress and leaves everything else to us, but you better be sure to arrive dressed up exactly the way she wants you to.
And on the wedding day, we usually have to arrive hours earlier than everyone else for makeup. Makeup artists usually need at least an hour per person and put on layers and layers of makeup on each bridesmaid, which is a bit of an overkill since Indonesian wedding receptions usually don’t go for longer than 2 hours anyway.
Finding the right wedding gift
These days, we have to check our wedding invitations for instructions on wedding gifts. Some specify what they want (they usually ask for bed sheets or rice cookers), but there are also those who specify that they “don’t receive gifts in physical form”, which obviously means they’d prefer money in an envelope.
Then there are some we’ve came across recently that refuses any wedding gifts whatsoever (probably because they’re families are ridiculously rich and/or they’re being monitored by the Corruption Eradication Commission). But then we feel bad and kind of cheap for not giving them anything. Oh well.
Finding the venue
It’s wise not to be overly reliant on Google Maps to get around Jakarta, especially if you’re trying to find a wedding reception venue that’s held in a house or on narrow streets instead of a fancy ballroom.
These so-called outdoor weddings often lead to road closures around the neighborhood, meaning you’ll probably have to park your vehicle far away from the venue (and hope that no one vandalizes it). If the reception is during the day, then there’s a decent chance your fancy dress will get drenched during your walk to the venue.
The hunger games
You may think the only decent thing about Indonesian weddings is the food. But then, getting said food is never without its struggles. Aside from the ridiculously long lines, prepare to put up with old people and children who think that queuing is only for muggles like us.
Don’t expect to eat too much at wedding receptions, because the food usually runs out way before the end of the party. So have a quick meal at home before you go, and if you’re lucky, you might just score a small plate of siomay or zuppa soup at the wedding.
Tagging everyone in photos
We’re usually bombarded with requests on social media to tag our friends at weddings as soon as we get home. Our advice: keep your smartphone in your pocket, and let your friends take photos on their devices so they’ll have to tag us later on. Suckers.
Yes, attending weddings can be a hassle, but it’s also an obligation that’s hard to avoid and occasionally, almost accidentally, can end up being fun. Looking at the stack of invitations in the corner of the room, it looks like our weekends will be filled with more and more weddings until at least the end of the year. Dare we go back for more?
