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Last weekend, I went zooming around the ring road all the way up to Kemayoran Expo in order to take in the Jakarta Mega Wedding Festival 2010.

I should just say at this point that I’m not planning a wedding myself, be it mega or otherwise, in the near future. I’m clearly not very committed when it comes to the fairer sex and it’s going to take a very special lady to keep me smiling (or a whole bunch of average ones).

I did, however, spy a number of Western gentlemen mingling in among the mainly ethnic Chinese attendees. They were being tugged reluctantly around the stalls and stands by their eager local fiancees.

What was on offer for young lovebirds to feast on down at the Jakarta Mega Wedding Festival 2010? Everything that any loving couple could possibly want for their big day. This included fancy rings to show off, cakes the size of wardrobes, dresses for fatties, elaborate wedding tuxedos that would make any groom look like a gay maitre d’, hideously expensive photographers who would airbrush your memories of that big day to a Hollywood level of blandness. Yes, there were literally a million and one ways to blow a sizeable chunk of cash that would otherwise be better spent on a prefabricated starter home outside of Bekasi that will look like a Roman ruin within five years.

Alas, the festival has now finished, so if you’re planning to get hitched in the near future, then you have missed all the best deals on an aspirational wedding that will create a satisfactory illusion of wealth and grandeur for your friends to try to top.

Weddings don’t come cheap though, even in Indonesia. I checked out prices for the various elements of the classic wedding and it certainly all adds up. A photographer will cost you a minimum of Rp 3.5 million ($375) for indoors and Rp 6 million for outdoors (no, I don’t understand the difference either). Surely you could get a friend to take a few snaps for you in these days of powerful digital cameras? Ha, I’m such a cheapskate. We’d better take a figure of Rp 6 million then.

Next up is the catering. If you wish to invite a large crowd of wedding guests, say 500 people, then the cheapest deal I could find was Rp 38 million all in. Actually, I had great fun at the catering stalls as they all featured sample wedding buffets for potential clients to test.

“Did the black pepper beef perform for you, sir?”

“Not bad my good man, I think I’ll try the caterers two stalls down, though, just to make a comparison.”

Several hours later, I was hitting the antacids. The things I do for this column.

Next up comes a cake. You can save a bit of money here by renting a pretend cake several feet high for only Rp 1 million and then giving your guests pieces from a more modest offering that has just been cut up behind the scenes. Honesty, that’s what launching a successful marriage is all about.

Next comes a hall or hotel function room to hold the reception in. This will set you back about another Rp 20 million minimum. Then there are the rings. We’d better add about Rp 30 million there. Then there are the invitations and the little gifts that are always given to wedding guests at the door in Indonesia. Whole selections of gift ideas were on display and ranged from cliched and boring fans or photo frames to rather more interesting beer bottle openers.

A wedding that I attended once actually gave away shot glasses, my personal favorite door gift. Moreover, when ex-strongman Suharto’s grandson got married a couple of years back, all the guests were given a rose made from five Rp 10,000 notes with two Rp 20,000 notes for the leaves, pretty much summing up that particular family’s weltanschauung. In any case, we’d better add about Rp 12 million for the invites and gifts. So that leaves us with a grand total of Rp 107 million. This is more than $10,000, roughly half the cost of the average American wedding, although I’ve probably forgotten lots of other stuff. I am a man after all.

I said the wedding festival reflected the classic Western Christianized wedding and seemed to be catering for a mainly ethnic Chinese clientele. However, I find Indonesian weddings, be they Muslim or Christian, to be much of a muchness. Many that I’ve attended haven’t been a whole heap of fun, to be frank. There is usually no drinking or dancing, as we have in the West, and certainly nothing like those weeklong affairs that they have in India. The bride and groom themselves have to do a whole lot of standing around looking like androgynous mannequins and generally avoiding any spontaneous displays of enjoyment.

No, no, I can’t face it. It’s elopement to Vegas for me if I ever get hitched to an Indonesian lass. When I tie the knot I want a 10-minute ceremony presided over by a dead-on-the-toilet, cheeseburger-era Elvis followed by a 24-hour Jack Daniel’s bender. Now that’s what I call a day to remember.



Simon Pitchforth has lived in Jakarta for 13 years. His Metro Mad Jakarta blog is at metromad.blogspot.com.