Catholic Wedding Ceremony - part 2

 4.      Signing the marriage license / Penandatanganan surat pernikahan

This session also has variations. Some couples postpone this signing session until all sessions are completed, or else.  

 

The pastor will ask the couple and witnesses forward to sign the wedding certificate (this is the church marriage license, not the government legal marriage license)

5.      Ask for parents blessing / Mohon doa restu orang tua

Now I think this is what distinguishes a Catholic ceremony in Indonesia and in other countries. After the couple is officially pronounced to be husband and wife, the pastor then ask the couple to go to their parents' seats and ask for blessing. This is a form of thanks to their parents for raising them and the parents will be asked to bless the couple in entering a new family life by giving them a 'cross sign' on their forehead.

See in the picture, the groom starts first by kneeling down in front of his parent in-law and ask for blessing, after he finished then it’s the bride's turn (this is usually the teary part :D) This custom in Indonesian traditional culture is called sungkeman and it shows how a part of Indonesian culture integrates with Catholic rites. A song will accompany this session, usually the one with lyrics depicting love to parents. Since this session usually a teary part, song in this session will be memorable to guests so slow ballad songs will touch their hearts deeper…

6.      Eucharistic Liturgy / Liturgi ekaristi

Ok, some weddings do not include this session since it will take more time. If this session is skipped, the pastor will officially end the wedding mass with blessing then proceed to number 7. Or else the mass  proceeded with eucharistic liturgy and communion then end with blessing

7.      Closing : Pray in front of Mary statue / Berdoa di depan Bunda Maria

The bride and groom carrying flower arrangements, a bridal candle and also accompanied by the pastor and altar boys go in front of Mary statue and pray asking for Her blessing upon their new family.

8.      Photo session / Sesi foto

After the mass, it’s photo session!! Then let's get on with the reception

Note: to see session number 1-4 see our previous post

That’s it!!!! Even for same Catholic wedding, in other countries there might be different variations too. Is the wedding ceremony different in yours? Let me know, ok?

From my own experience as a guest, the songs play important part too, especially the first entrance song and the one during session 5, I’ve seen some guests even got teary just by listening to the songs. So, if you have time, consult the songs with the choir group to achive maximum effect and make your wedding more memorable.

Church Decor by Team Margriet

Catholic Wedding Ceremony - part 1

Welll, this is not exactly about flowers, but this post is still related to the weddings particularly Catholic wedding ceremony in Indonesia, so I guess it’s still fine :D . If you’re planning a Catholic wedding we hope this post will give you insight on the ritual. Whaat? You’re not a Catholic? Don’t worry we plan to post wedding ceremonies from other religions soon! So lets start, shall we?

1.      Bride and Groom Blessing / Pemberkatan Mempelai

Like any other Catholic rites, a catholic wedding will began with a blessing. In Indonesia this blessing has two variations, whether the couple being blessed before entering the church or at the main altar. The choir will sing the entrance song at this point and it’s usually the most memorable song for the guests, so pick the song carefully!!

Variation 1: This is the old tradition, where the bride and groom are blessed by the pastor at the church’s entrance.

They then enter the church hand in hand together behind the pastor.

Variation 2: Now this is the new trend in Indonesia, brought in by all those Hollywood movies, where the groom waited in front of the main altar then the bride enters the church with her father.

After the groom receives the bride then the pastor bless them with holy water.

2.      Liturgy of the Word / Liturgi Sabda

The mass then proceed with liturgy of the word session, until the pastor gives light speech. This speech usually contains a bit of interaction with the couple, like a sort of question and answer game to test their level  of love and understanding of each other

3.    The ceremony  of sacramental marriage / Upacara sakramen pernikahan

We now enter the most important session i.e. the Pastor will ask the couple one more time about their willingness to get married, then the wedding vows exchanged, afterward the pastor ask all the guests to pray together for the new family.

Thus the wedding rings will be blessed, and then the couple exchanged rings. Afterward the bride will be unveiled and the groom may kiss the bride. Next the tray containing a Bible, a Holy cross and a Rosario will be blessed too, then we proceed to session 4.

(to be continued in part 2)

Tips on Memorable Wedding Date

Weddings as a happy occasion usually held on good day, this term can have lots of meanings but lately a beautiful wedding date or in Indonesian “tanggal pernikahan cantik” does not necessarily mean a result of a complex calculated birth days or to avoid unlucky days, but simply a memorable numbers. Like the wedding of Indonesian celebrity, Irfan hakim, which held on 07-07-2007 all with seven on it, this seven-theme extend to the dowry, which also had seven numbers in it. Last year we even had the chance to do a wedding church décor for a couple who married on 11-11-2011 at 11.11 AM, cool huh?

These memorable wedding date had been a phenomenon for quite a few years and might continue in the future. Of course, the same number on date month and year will end this year  at 12-12-2012 but lots of other combination can be made to make a memorable wedding date such as 11-12-2013 (11-12-13)  or 20-12-2012 for instance and many others. Since getting married on memorable date becomes a trend, it’s interesting to see if memorable wedding date is really a good idea after all…

The most reasons for picking out a wedding date with memorable number is to make the couple easily remembers their wedding date, so no more excuse for forgetting your anniversary date. The other reason is because it's a trend and since lots of people have to compete for booking venues and stuff on a memorable date, thus being able to get married on memorable day is considered an achievement.

Whatever your reason, we would like to share with you a few things to be considered if you’re trying to get a memorable number for your wedding date :

1.      Cost

Yep, the economy rules. The more people wants to get married on a certain date, the bigger chance for venue or ballroom owner as well as caterers to increase the price. Why? For venue it’s because they have more bargaining power when lots of people want to use a hall or ballroom. For caterers because more demand will increase the ingredient price, this of course will effect the end price.

As for wedding décor, especially the ones using fresh flowers, the price will increase 50 to 100%. If you’re on very tight budget, consider artificial flowers with basic design instead.

2.      Quality

Flowers are harvested annually according to season so the supply is basically constant. In case of high demand, to fulfill orders many planters substitute full bloom flowers with smaller buds or give lower grade flowers. We experienced this ourselves, for the same price, the quality of the flowers declined. This might also applied to food so you must consider this too.

3.      Time

When lots of people want to get married on the same date, the competition begins. Most venues, caterers and decorators must be booked a year maybe even two year in advance, so the wedding must be planned far way ahead. What will you do if on the date the church can be booked, decorator can be booked but the venues had already fully booked or the rental price had increased unreasonably?

4.      Schedule

On 11-11-2011 last year, we noticed significant traffic jam in Bandung area eventhough it’s not weekend. Reason? The wedding guests' vehicles J. In St Peter’s Cathedral itself held 5 weddings, (we haven’t counted weddings occurred that day in other churches and mosques all over Bandung) so lots of guest’s cars parked overflowed to Merdeka street, just like Christmas mass. So consider traffic in your schedule, you might get late to the church or reception venue because of it.

Also prepare in case you have to rush. Usually, after the wedding mass, the couple and family will have a photo session (with the pastor and by themselves) inside and outside the church. Afterward, most guests would like to  congratulate the couple before the crowd dispersed. Depending on guests numbers, this usually takes time between 30 minutes to one hour. On 11-11-2011, since there are 5 weddings held that day, after the mass the couple only had time around 5 minutes to take pictures inside the church, then the church committee announced the couple and guests to went outside before congratulating ritual so that guests for the next wedding can come in. When we step outside, whooaa!! There’s already crowd standing there waiting and rushing inside.

Lesson : on days when lots of wedding occurred in church, less leisurely time to take pictures and stuff… younger people might not overly concern with this, but older parents and relatives might get a bit miffed when they have to rush here and there.

Reception time must be well planned too. The couple who got married at 11.11 AM held their wedding reception at 12.30 PM. Hence the traffic and so on, the couple arrived at 01.00 PM to the reception.  A little past the lunch time, resulting in the guests already been hungry and a little grumpy. This might not happen if the mass occurred at lets say 10.00 AM or at least give enough lag time between the ceremony and the reception so that the guests can go home or find to eat by themselves. So, the memorable wedding hour had its consequences too. That's why, plan the reception time carefully. 

Pheww, quite a lot to be considered huh? I'm personally not to keen  on this memorable wedding date trend, since for the same budget you must put more effort and compromise on lots of things, unless you prepared to pay more. For me, I prefer a leisurely wedding in good quality. But don’t be deflated, this post are not intended to discourage you from choosing a memorable wedding date, just for consideration only. If you think the wedding date is well worth to be fought, then go for it!! Wedding is one in a lifetime anyrway.

These are few pictures of the day before the event 11-11-2011 during the arranging flowers' time. Lots of flower arrangements must be made by Margriet that day since one of the wedding was held for the family of the biggest supermarket chains in Bandung and few special requests have been made. Some of us worked from morning untill evening.

In the morning only the base of all the wedding flower stands had been covered with foliage, but at noon... Tadaaa!!!! all of them are done, pretty huh? These flower arrangements were for the main aisle. We’ll show you the detail next post!

This is what the main altar flower arrangement look like before it's finished.

 If you’re curious to what these wedding arrangements look like when they’re finished, don’t miss our next post, ok?

Note:

Church Décor by Team Margriet

Tips 03: How to Make an Easy Gift Hamper

Actually among many kinds of gift hamper, a gift hamper contains of fruit is the easiest to make. You just simply prepare any kinds of fruit available in the market, usually ‘all year round’ fruit such as oranges, apples, pears etc, but avoid bananas because it contains ethylene gas that makes it or other fruit around easily ripe. You also have to prepare a basket where the fruit put into. You can use bamboo basket or the one which made of woven palm leaf ribs as they are cheap enough. You also need some old newspaper to be placed as a base at the bottom of the basket (this is necessary especially if the basket is quite deep and it will also help the fruit stay firmly at its place), then cover it with crepe paper.  That is it. Now you are ready to arrange the fruit into the basket.

Use your artistic instincts. Usually big fruit placed at the bottom, the upper the smaller and lighter. Put the fruit in groups, do not spread. Arrange the fruit in such a way as to balance. The easiest way is put them symmetrically, so that left and right side have equal weight.  Place the most exotic or expensive fruit at the front as a focus so it can be seen easily at a glance or from any point of view.  Sometimes you need double tape to make them stick together and stay at their place. Finally add bows, ribbon or other accessories to make the gift hamper look more beautiful.

If you want the gift hamper look more special, combine it with flowers. See my old post (Step by Step Tutorial - posted on  5 January 2012).

Easy, right? Finally wrap with plastic wrap. Well, now the gift hamper is ready to be sent.

NB: If you use fruit stored in the refrigerator, make sure you take it out and let in the open air for a few minutes to near room temperature before being arranged so that non-condensing.

Tips 02: How To Overcome The High Price of Flowers

Flowers price that rises suddenly in high season often makes it difficult for florists to determine the price for their products. Especially when demand increasing such as at 111111, a special date of 11 November 2011. The price of the flowers before that date continue to increase and peaked at a day before the big day but unfortunately the amount of the flowers is decreasing because of lots of orders from big decorators and if there are flowers available, the quality is far from satisfactory, such as flowers of casablancas, roses and hortentias. The flowers were small and have more buds than the blooming ones as they’re actually not ready to be picked but finally harvested also. Even though not worth enough, they were still looked for by lots of people. What such a tense moment! It was really making stress. And to overcome this situation, here are the tips:

1. Combine the flowers, do not use expensive flowers all but also cheaper ones such as gladiolus, daisies, gerberas, chrysanthemum, anthurium etc. Besides cheaper they are also more durable, especially anthurium. Anthurium has maximum durability compared with roses or casablancas which can only last for 1-2 days.

2. However it’s undeniable that in general, roses are still favorite flowers. So, make sure you keep the humidity of the roses by spraying them with water more frequently. And if they haven’t been used yet, always soak the stems in water so as not to wilt quickly. This also applies to hortentia. This beautiful big round flower is easily withered after being cut or if placed in room temperature in summer or hot season. But do not be upset and in rush threw them into the trash. Here is the secret, just soak the withered hortentia into a bucket full of water. Within an hour, your favorite flower will be fresh again and ready to be arranged in a vase.

Tips 01: The First Step You Should Prepare Before Arranging Flower

1. Before arranging flower, prepare in advance the materials (such as flowers, foliage, wire, ribbon etc), containers and tools (such as scissors, cutter, pliers/tongs, glue gun etc). Place them all near the table where you work so that you do not go back and forth when going to use it. It’s really time saving especially when you do not have any assistant to help.

2. Make sure the oasis being used is really wet. Soak a few hours before and check whether its center has absorbed the water completely. If not, then the flowers you are using will certainly wilt soon so that you are doing in vain.

Note: it would be better if you soak the oasis overnight and do not push it into the water but let it absorb the water slowly till it sinks by itself.