Strange Pants’ Wedding

Author: May

(No Ratings Yet)

Loading ...

10 Jul

Last Saturday, we (my bro and I) were honored to attend our friends’ wedding at Trade-winds in Lami. It was the wedding of one of our ex-colleague and seniors, “Strange Pants“, and his beloved, the fun and cheerful Alisi. The occasion was held on the auspicious and memorable day – 7th July 2007 at 4pm. (07-07-07) Very easy to remember for anniversaries.

Note: Lightbox Enabled.
Click on any image and hover over the image to browse Next or Previous images.

Promises and Vows
When we arrived there late and, it was already started; we were about 45min late. We gave our gifts to the welcoming party, sign the guest sheets and quickly went in front to take a seat. Nobody was taking photos that time so I started to take some, shortly followed by some guests and friends photographers. There are some speeches and prayers in both English and Fijian languages. Bride and Groom exchanged Vows in both languages as well. Jachin had a hard time repeating the Fijian words but he managed to keep up and done quite well in the end. The guests applauded him for his effort. While exchanging Vows and rings, Alisi was crying, happy tears…oh just so cute!

Greeting Guests
The couple received lots of congratulations and blessings from the family, relatives and friends. They proceed to greet all the guests and went out to take some family photos. The session was halted for about 30 min to prepare for the next part.

Fijian Ceremony
Second session started with an exchange of gifts and formal greetings/welcoming in Fijian style. Both sides talked in Fijian. I think it’s something like bride’s family handing their daughter formally to the groom’s family and vice-versa. There is this thing called, “Tabua“, whale’s tooth which is used as a gift. I think it’s similar to olden days Burmese style engagement/wedding gifts where Burmese groom side has to give a set of cows and a set of coconut and bananas (Ok I’m not so sure. Different places have different way of giving gifts in asking for their bride’s hand) to the bride side. The more set of cows you give, the better for you. But nowadays, no more cows involved (may be coconut and banana are still used) and getting more materialistic, some bride’s side would ask for money or housing or jewels. Well don’t know properly cos’ I never get to see any close relative’s wedding yet. Same thing in Fijian society but instead of cows, they use this whale’s tooth. I think Jachin side offered quite a number of whale’s teeth during their engagement to Alisi family.

Honored Guests
There were quite a lot of guests attended the wedding. Many came from various part of Fiji and some from abroad. Some special guests are introduced; some came all the way from Tonga and Groom’s relatives from Brisbane Australia. There was a Tongan style food preparations ie. whole pig roasting and plenty of seafood. I forgot to take photos of the food. The meal was splendid with many courses. About 3 or 4 fish dishes, pork, Indian curries, salads, Lobsters, crabs and Fijian dishes. There were lots of food and many people took second helpings. My bro and I enjoyed a big plate full each.

Entertainment
There were three parts of entertainment. The first was a lovely song sang by one Fijian lady, the second was another song sing by Jachin’s younger brother (Jonathan or something) and his friend. I think they sang pretty well but there were some kids at the back screaming and playing and some people are not listening properly. I think the guy relized that too so he didn’t smile or say thank you towards the end of the song. But they did have some audiences, some girls came up in front to take a video. The last one was a dance performance by a young girl. I think she was one of the Bride’s maids too. It’s not a Fijian dance…Tongan?…not sure. The dance involves lots of hand movement and gestures with little head shakes and small footings. I like her costume and head part. She was very shy dancing in front everyone but she received lots of kisses from the audiences and some men danced along with her. It was overall a cute performance.

Speeches
Speeches were given by the fathers of both sides as well as the special speech by the Groom and the Bride. The speech by the bride’s father was quite amusing where he talked about how he remembered the newly son-in-law in their first meeting and their very first impression on Jachin when he was introduced to the family for the first time. I’ve finally found out the reason behind the disappearance of Jachin’s long hair and big beard from that speech. It was after all because of Alisi’s Dad’s ultimatum to cut his hair if Jachin wants to date the daughter. haha It must have been his family influence…I discovered those big beards run in the family. Check out his Dad and the brother. When I first met Jason, he got a big beard, mustaches and a whole lot of long curly hair. He was one of the guys to interview me for my job. I thought he was about 35+ or something because of his appearance. He did scare me a bit during interview compared to the 2nd interviewer, Ian, who looked quite well and keep scratching his head that time. Though Ian has a beard, he didn’t have a big hair like Jason so not that scary. hehe. I thought Jason looked like a grandson of Frank Einstein and I called him “Sir”. Later I found out that he actually was just a few years older than me and quite fun to work with once you get to know him. Apart from that, Jason’s Dad and the couple speeches are quite normal mostly thanking God and everyone. Jachin and Alisi said about 20 – 30 thank yous in their short speech. I think they didn’t prepare their speech properly. But it was fine.

Cutting Wedding Cake
Finally they cut the wedding cake. The cake looked cool and I like the porcelain doll at the top. They both look great posing in those photos.

One thing I noticed from the wedding was that there is no kissing involved after their exchange of Vows. It was absolutely PG rating. hehe The couple kisses outside while they are taking photos, just to pose. May be because the wedding was a mix styled, Fijian and Australian, some usual scenes are missing. Another thing is no throwing of flower bouquet from the Bride after the wedding…may be she did throw it before they left but I didn’t get to see cos’ we came back home early. Aww yah, I like the bouquet, it’s made out of “Tapa“. Alisi’s gown is also made of Tapa and is a beautifully crafted dress.

Anyways the wedding was great and everyone enjoyed it. Around 8:30pm, we came back home. We wished the couple many happiness and many many many children in their near future.

Related Posts:
The Trip, The Training, The Road & The Driver

Rotten Service at ANZ Suva

Filed under: Australia, Fashion and Styles, Fiji, Friends, Life Style, Photography

RSS feed for comments on this post

7 Responses for "Strange Pants’ Wedding"

kaoskongo July 10th, 2007 at 11:08 pm 1
Nice wedding I’m not sure, but i do believe half of Fiji got married on that very weekend i swear My sister-in-law got married that weekend too, near Lami as well hehe

As for that little girl dancing, thats definitely a Tongan dance
steve July 16th, 2007 at 4:32 am 2
interesting!
Michael Sync July 19th, 2007 at 11:58 pm 3
Lightbox plug-in seems not working. sis.. I’m getting one err in firebug addon saying that missing “)” after condition..
May July 20th, 2007 at 12:38 pm 4
@Michael Sync:
It seems to be working for me on both on FF and IE. The error you’re getting is not the lightbox error but my site template error. You only get that error on IE and no on FF. If you click “No” to the error and proceed, it works fine.

For the lightbox enabled images to work properly, you have to wait till the thumbnail images are fully loaded. If the page hasn’t fully loaded yet, the lightbox effect will not show and will take you directly to image page.

Anyways thanks for letting me know about the error, thought I’m aware of it, I’m too lazy to fix my template for IE since it work fine on FF.
daniel July 22nd, 2007 at 8:42 pm 5
@ kaoskong: Yes, Tongan. She is a 2nd cousin from the Tongan side.
kiti July 24th, 2007 at 11:43 am 6
@kaoskongo, it seems that the wave of weddings was a worldwide phenomenon, something about 7/7/07.

see:
http://www.jaunted.com/story/2007/7/6/12536/68222/travel/The 7 7 7 Wedding Rush Is On In Vegas, Elsewhere
http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Celebrities/0,,2-1225-2108_2142260,00.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/07/LUCKYDAY.TMP&tsp=1
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070705/COL03/707050356/1081
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/451662,CST-NWS-wed02.article
Daniel Ho July 24th, 2007 at 2:42 pm 7
Isa…. It is nice to see the Inet gang at the Jachina’s (oop…) wedding and the job well done by May for these wedding pictures… Congrats to Jachin & Alisi for their newly wed… Now what? Time to make the babies and catching up… hehehe… By the way, love to see these pictures with the true scenes of Fijian way.