In Reply to: questions posted by shaddup on Thursday, 1. February 2007 at 22:57 Bali Time:
The priest was tying a string around Dave's wrist & his female helper was about to tie one around mine - not sure of the significance (perhaps Balibabies knows) but I think we had to leave them on until they fell off. There was a lot of smoke-wafting, water-sprinkling, rice grains on foreheads. It was a lengthy ceremony. We kept poking each other in the ribs saying Is this real?? It was magic.
We don't really know what our vows were in the Balinese ceremony, but, from talking with the locals, they seemed similar to what our personal vows were. I tried to find out as much as I could, but it was hard for me to understand what they take as given.
Funnily, the Balinese, other than those involved in the ceremony, all wore their best western clothes, but the bules for the most part wore sarongs & waist scarves.
We had lots of big plastic mandi buckets and filled them with a lethal punch with copious amounts of Mansion House Gin etc (which, fortunately, came with a free glass with every bottle).
We spent our wedding night at the then recently opened Hotel Nusa Dua & when we arrived back in Legian the next day the whole village was shut down. Shops all closed. Banjar deserted. Streets quiet. Bali Waltzing Matilda closed. Our house was wall-to-wall comatose bodies. Some punch!!! Took days for Legian Kaja to get back to normal. THE best wedding.