Weddings in the past

I have always wondered what a Brunei wedding in the past looked like. This postcard unfortunately is not a Brunei Malay wedding but a wedding somewhere in Malaya in 1908. I wish someone would have taken a photograph of a Brunei wedding then.

Wedding practises changed. I remembered not that long ago, for a wedding ceremony, you need a lot of help. One is to get all the bamboos from the nearby forest to build the kem as we Bruneians called them. These kem are handmade complete with the seats all being built from bamboo and timber. Even the roof was using the various leaves especially the coconut tree leaves. As times get more modern, canvas was borrowed and rented out for the roof. Once the wedding is over, you have to remove everything.

Cooking too was not easy. Cows had to be slaughtered. Chickens had to be caught. Unlike the pay and pay method of today, the days in the past meant that one had to get everything oneself. And this includes borrowing all the pots and pans and the dishes and the bowls etc. In the 1950s, food was served safrah style. Four to a talam. It was none of this everyone kaut sendiri kind of thing. Serving buffet style when it first appeared was talked about. But over time that changed. We have no problem going to a main central table to get the food ourselves.

The interesting part was the cigarette. I remembered in the 1970s, cigarattes had to be served. There used to be a few packets to a table to cater for the various tastes. Smoking was socially acceptable. But then everyone don't smoke that much. Just one cigarette and that's it. And bananas were served too. I don't know what it is that connects bananas to cigarettes but they always go together then.