Yogyakarta’s resplendent Javanese royal wedding

If London had its royal wedding earlier this year, the Palace of

If London had its royal wedding earlier this year, the Palace of Yogyakarta Hadiningrat will be the setting for Java’s own grand royal wedding this October between Princess Gusti Raden Ajeng Nur Astuti Wijareni, youngest daughter of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, and Achmad Ubaidillah from Lampung in Sumatra.

The entire festivities will last four days from October 16-19, 2011, with the actual wedding ceremony scheduled to take place on Tuesday, October 18, 2011. The date chosen for this memorable occasion was carefully determined through ancient and sophisticated Javanese calculations based on the dates of birth of both the bride and the groom.

Festivities are expected to be rich in royal Javanese tradition and culture that have been well preserved at the palace, known as the heart of Javanese culture.
Daughter of Sultan Hamengkubuwono X of Yogyakarta with the young government official in the Office of Indonesia’s Vice President, will tie the knot at a full Javanese royal ceremony. As for colors used for this happy occasion, the princess said that the couple will use white and orange for the “Ijab Qabul” or wedding vows, and white and green for the evening wedding reception.

On the first day of the ceremonial sequence, on October 16, the groom will be received at the verandah of Ndalem Mangkunegaran to await the royal family who will fetch him in a royal coach. He will then be led to the Bangsal Kesatrian hall and rest at the Gedhong Srikaton building.

In the meantime, the bride will undergo the so-called plangkahan ritual at the western palace to seek blessings from her still unmarried elder sister, GRA Nurabra Juwita. The ritual will proceed with ngabekten, or asking for blessings from the entire royal family. In the evening, mass prayers will be held at the Penepen Mosque inside the palace complex.

Siraman, or a bathing ritual, will follow on the second day. Then the Sultan accompanied by Ratu GKR Hemas will ask both the bride and bride groom whether they are truly prepared to be joined in wedlock.

The highlight of the festivities will be the wedding ceremony itself on October 18, which will include a series of traditional rituals starting with the panggih ceremony (the meeting of the bride and the groom). Then the Ijab Qabul ceremony will take place at the Penenpen Mosque at 0730 in the morning.

The royal family will also adopt the wedding parade, which was also conducted for the wedding of Sultan Hamengku Buwono VII, proceeding from the Keraton or Palace to the Kepatihan hall. The parade will use 5 royal horse carriages, with the newlyweds riding in the Jongwiyat coach, a horse-drawn carriage built in 1880.
The entire ceremony will end with the groom’s family saying their farewell to the royal family at the Gedhong Jene building.

Over 200 journalists from local, national, and international media are expected to cover the rare event. As of Friday, October 7, 2011, 167 journalists have registered to watch the spectacle. Journalists wishing to cover this rare event can register at the Media Center at the Bale Raos Keraton and Kepatihan complex (Yogyakarta’s Governor Office) on October 14 by bringing an assignment letter and 4×6 cm photograph , while the press ID card will be given the next day, October 15, 2011. Considering its magnitude, one media can only send one photo journalist and one reporter, as mentioned in www.beritaterkini.info .

The royal wedding will also coincide with Yogyakarta’s 255th anniversary celebrations. Yogyakarta’s Culture and Tourism office is planning to merge the royal wedding together with the city’s anniversary celebrations into an elaborate package, which will have as its pinnacle the Jogja Java Carnival on October 22.
More information may be found at: http://www.jogjatrip.com/id/event/r/1955/royal-wedding-ngayogyakarto-hadiningrat .

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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