On Saturday afternoon, March 29, while on our Tropical Ecology field trip to the mangrove ecosystem in Merbok, Kedah, the people in the village (kampung) where we were staying invited us to attend a traditional Malay wedding and wedding feast (kenduri).
The bride was from the southern peninsular state of Johor, and the groom was from a part of “our” village, Kampung Bujang. Both are school teachers, who met while attending the university together, and eventually got teaching jobs at the same school in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sabah (on the island of Borneo). They took advantage of a one-week holiday break in the school year to have two wedding ceremonies, one for the friends of the bride in Johor, and the other for the friends of the groom in Kedah.
Eating at the Kenduri
Along with over a hundred guests, we were treated to a feast of yellow rice, fried chicken, and beef curry, and then our group got to take a picture with the newlyweds in their traditional Malay wedding dress.
With the Newlyweds