A colourful wedding

Wedding cards are usually a dime or a dozen, produced in mass production, looks almost similar and rarely ever stands out. But a colleague of mine who got married recently gave us quite a cool looking wedding invitation card which looked like this:

The interesting bit was that every one of us received a different picture of the couple – they were quite nicely done, in my opinion.  Every card had a creative element in it, and every card was inserted into a hand-folded paper doily which was used as an envelope. It was simple yet pretty - not quite the typical Thai wedding invitation. And what I liked about it was that the invitation felt sincere and personal.

I’ve been to countless weddings, and several Thai weddings, but this was one of those invitation cards which stood out really well. The wedding was themed “colourful” - not a typical traditional Thai wedding reception either. It was cosy and intimate. Here is the bunch of us from the office:

The Bride & Groom are the ones with the arrows.

And did I mention that the bride is really gorgeous!

Whilst we are on the topic of Thai wedding, in the Thai culture, rather than giving a gift or enclosing money as gift inside a wedding card, it is customary to present monetary gifts in the envelope in which you receive your wedding invitation. The envelope bears your name on it, so the married couple knows who gave them the gift. The envelope is usually given at the evening reception and as guests, you usually receive a small memento or a wedding favour in return,

As I recently found out, wearing the colour purple to a Thai wedding reception is a complete no-no. According to one usually speculative source, purple apparently symbolises divorce. That being said, it definitely is not a colour one should wear to a Thai wedding reception at all cost.

I don't know how true this is and how reliable the source is (given that it came out of a foreigner's mouth and when I asked the Thais, they told me they don't know of such things -  and granted I spotted a few Thais wearing purple), my take is, if in doubt and when it comes to Thai weddings, don't do it.