One of the most pleasurable events in the calendar of rural Thailand is a village wedding. A Village wedding tends to draw the best from its community and maintains a sense of tradition that is gradually being lost in the more "affluent" parts of the country. Unlike Bangkok where many people now opt (western style) to  simply present a cheque to a Hotel for its caterer to organise everything, a village wedding in contrast is all hands on.

In the end Hotel Weddings Bangkok style tend to be bland affairs whereas their village counterparts are for want of a better word - fun!!. Over the past two decades I have attended many weddings (including my own wedding  in 1991) and I can't think of one that was not relaxed or again simply a fun affair.

In the course of a week during our last visit, Mali and I attended a funeral, a wedding and invited the Monks to the house. Although to a westerner these sought of events might appear disparate, especially a funeral and wedding, in Thailand there is a marvelous synergy between all three. Life is to be embraced and the connectivity between funeral, wedding and blessing is Buddhist practice.

As mentioned above on our last visit to Ban Phutsa, we attended a wedding. The bride was the daughter of one of Mali's cousins. The groom was from another family in the village. The two of them had jobs down in Bangkok but had come back to the village for three days to get married.

Like funerals, weddings in rural Thailand tend to be leisurely affairs lasting on average two days. Like many other cultures the responsibility for organising the wedding  lies with the bride's family. This causes the usual organisational headaches and "butterflies" in the stomach. However unlike a "cheque book" wedding in the west or Bangkok , a wedding in rural Thailand means much of the organising and work  is taken up by other family, friends and neighbours. Problems are shared and soon cease to be problems at all. Even the cost of the wedding is offset by the tradition of wedding guests giving money to the family of the bride.

Another advantage are the resources available at the village temple such as Marquees, tables, chairs, pots/pans, plates and cutlery. These items belong to the Temple but are seen as a community resource to be used at the numerous cultural and religious events that occur in the village - with the obvious caveat that they be returned later on. But in the end what really makes things work is that every villager instinctively knows what needs to be done. After erecting the marquee, placing tables and chairs and of course the sound system (also borrowed from the temple) the next immediate task is preparing the mountain of food for the wedding guests and the village Monks.

Again this mammoth task is not seen as an onerous one by its participants. The chopping, dicing etc. is a leisurely affair - a mixture of hard work, laughter, gossip and whisky drinking. At the wedding preparations on our last trip, a bottle of home made whiskey that Mali  and I had brought back from our recent trip to Laos was sampled and quickly drained - not a drop wasted.

A wedding in rural Thailand is divided into two not so neat parts. On the first day the tradition is that the monks are invited in the morning to the home of the brides parents to bless the coming union. The monks are of course presented with alms and a meal by the family of the bride and most importantly by the bride and the groom themselves.

The blessing by the monks is one of the linchpins of a Thai wedding but does not constitute the marriage itself. The marriage ceremony  performed the next day is officiated by a village layman. The village monks by tradition do not attend the marriage ceremony on the second day.

The rest of the first day is spent completing the food preparation, drinking, talking and celebrating. In the evening, the party continues well into the night after which the prospective groom and his family returns home to prepare for his actual marriage the next day. As is apparent , Thai weddings aren't linear events like in the west.

On the next morning the bride and her family await the arrival of the groom and his family. By tradition, the groom walks to the home of his bride surrounded by his family and friends. As a rule the walk is accompanied by the sound of drums and the banshee like cry of the Thai wedding song coming from the sound system.

The groom looking uncomfortable in hired suit again surrounded by family and friends walks into the grounds of his brides home. The first hurdle the groom faces is a group of the brides female friends who have stretched in front of him both a gold and a silver chain. By tradition to continue through the gold and silver barrier he has to pay a baht tribute to   each of the women.

After this has been done, the bride is then escorted downstairs  to greet her future husband. As is the tradition in other cultures the bride wears traditional costume together with make-up and hairstyle. The groom then stands on a banana leaf as the bride kneels, waiis and then commences to wash his feet.

After that the groom and bride walk upstairs followed by family and friends. The wedding is performed by a village layman well versed in the Buddhist canon.

During the ceremony the people in attendance come forward individually to bless the union and tie sacred cords around the wrists of the newly married couple. Once this is done the couple are officially hitched.

Another interesting feature of the village wedding is the question of witness. In the west what legally seals the wedding is not the marriage ceremony but the signing of the register by both bride/groom and two witnesses. At a Thai wedding everyone at the wedding is considered to be a witness. As such in the past many people in the village chose not to have their marriage officially recorded, simply as all and sundry recognised their union. I like that concept but concede that in the modern world filled with paperwork and possessions that its not practical.

After the ceremony another of the countless meals over the past two days is served to the guests who then proceed to leave once they have eaten. This signifies the end of the wedding celebrations. At the wedding that we attended in November 2005, many of the guests leaving simply climbed into trucks to go out to the rice fields. The harvest was currently in full swing and the wedding had been a simple but important interlude.

This particular wedding caused me to think about the seamless nature of ceremony and day to day life in the village. As the wedding progressed over the two days life also continued on in the village. People not invited to the wedding passed by without "rubbernecking" - just comfortable with any event in the life of the village.

Dare I say again- another example of the influence of Buddhism on village culture. All I can say finally is roll on the next wedding but wait until I get there.