Day 2 Agenda
- Make-up, hair, and dress
- Breakfast at the resort
- Wat Phra That Doi Kham for blessing
- Royal Park Rajapruek
No Peace for the wicked
Another early start for our 2nd day; with limited help for make-up and hair, the ladies needed to be available as early as possible; we had a busy morning ahead of us. As couples slowly prepared themselves, we assembled for breakfast in an open dining area before heading to Wat Phra That Doi Kham for our 2nd blessing.
This 2nd day would have a more international feel in both dress and activities and was ultimately focused on promoting the sponsors and Chiang Mai as a wedding destination. The press were on hand later in the day, they were enthusiastic to include the two participating foreigners (farang), so Ann and I actually got on Thai evening news that day.
Ladies with very full western style wedding dresses climbing into minivans was an amusing sight that I didn’t get a photo of, how many wedding dresses can you pack into a minivan?
Wat Phra That Doi Kham
Wat Phra That Doi Kham sits high in the mountains that overlook Chiang Mai and Rajapruek Royal Park below where we would complete our day 2 wedding festivities. It’s an amazing view of the city from the terrace, especially on such a beautiful day.
The morning breeze in the mountains was very welcoming, especially in my form-fitting Dr. No outfit. Luckily the blessing was quite swift, ensuring we didn’t need to sit on the floor for too long – thank goodness, I was worried about bursting seams in my jacket…!
The view from Wat Phra That Doi Kham looking down onto the royal gardens is quite impressive; time for some picturesque shots before bundling back into the minivans for the final event of our Thai wedding with a different 🙂
Royal Park Rajapruek
Chiang Mai is well known for its annual flower displays in the Royal Park Rajapruek, it’s quite surprising that on subsequent vacations in Chiang Mai we have yet to be there during the festivals, none the less, it made for an impressive venue for the final celebration of our wedding staged at 9:00 am on Sept 9th, 2009.
This is where we finally received our rings, performed a ceremonial cutting of the cake, and took lots of photos accompanied by cute little bridesmaids. This was also where those who wanted marriage certificates could fill out the necessary paperwork.
Located on a concrete plaza, it was hot, humid, and very bright, I was looking forwards to wearing something more casual and relaxing later that day.
As a final but fun send-off, each couple left the venue on the back of a golf cart holding placade announcing their names and that they were just married. Of course, no one told us we should change position to match the placade.
The organizers did a great job, but i cannot imagine how it would have worked with 99 couples, there’s absolutely no way the Monfai Cultural Center could have accommodated more than the seven couples that we had,
The celebrations were not over yet for us, since Ann would soon be moving to the USA, her relatives wanted a final dinner which included a lot of beer drinking :-), thank goodness we’d booked a 2nd night at the Heun Dok Kaew Resort. Of course, this was completely understandable, with Ann and her sisters living in Bangkok, their aunts, and uncles in the north wanted to take this opportunity to catch up and tease me about my terrible Thai. After eleven years of marriage, I’m still only capable of saying hello/goodbye and thank you in Thai without referring to a book.