Well, yesterday was the day. While we’re still awaiting the official endorsement of the state of Texas, we performed a traditional Thai Buddhist ceremony and are now married (mostly).
We had been watching the weather like hawks the last several days. Everyday it said it was going to rain all week, and everyday it didn’t and instead was beautiful. I was starting to become afraid that our luck was going to run out. So we woke up super early, to get ready and wait for the photographer and makeup/hair person to come get Lauren ready. The sky was cloudy and the sun was just starting to show hints of rising. Not the ideal weather conditions, but as long as it didn’t pour down with rain, I’d take it.
The thing to remember about Thailand is that time seems to be an irrelevant concept here. If someone says they’ll be somewhere at 6am, then it is really more of an approximation, than an exact estimate. This seems to be especially true on an island where you have to rely on longboats to get you from one place to the next. So when Lauren’s hair/makeup person was running a half hour late, while annoying, it really was just par for the course.
Luckily they got here and all was well.
The photographer took pictures of us and our room, while Lauren had her hair and makeup done outside. In no time, we were all done up and ready to go. We went to the beach climbed aboard a longboat and we were off, to another beach down the island.
We arrived to a clean white beach, with a small table with food on it, with a walkway leading away from it, up to a small covered seating area. The monks who would be performing the ceremony were praying, so we had about 15 minutes before we could get started. So we took the opportunity to do all sorts of embarrassing couple like photos up and down the beach. We should hopefully have digital copies in a few days.
The ceremony itself was nice.
It started with us providing offerings of food to each of the 3 monks, then we proceeded to meet with them at the covered seating area, where we did a small ceremony where we provided them with tea and they blessed us with water and rose petals. The then tied a small string around my wrist, which I in turn tied another around Lauren’s (the monks are not allowed to touch the woman).
Afterward, the monks moved back and we moved into a small water blessing ceremony and then had to say a few things to each other. I seemed to be more prepared for this than Lauren was, as I said nice things about her making my life more adventurous, being my best friend, etc… and she said she was excited to go to monkey beach. I get it, I’m pretty excited to see the monkeys too.
The ceremony ended soon after with us exchanging rings and vows.
Overall, it was a beautiful was to start the morning and I can’t wait for what comes next.
Passport Proposal 