TLDR: How can one plan a ‘Buddhist’ wedding in Singapore / Malaysia? Angela shares on how she approached her wedding planning while balancing cultural/societal expectations. Here are 8 tips for a smooth planning process
Planning a wedding can be overwhelming. Planning a Buddhist wedding can be even more daunting. After all, Buddha has never explicitly taught how to plan a wedding. Where do we begin? How much is too much?
After ticking off the bigger tasks like venue, guests list and objectives of the celebration, my partner and I started to brainstorm on Buddhist elements for our wedding. Initially, we wanted to include a Dhamma talk by a renowned Dhamma speaker and a guided meditation session.
We were apprehensive. Apprehensive because we were concerned that our guests from other religions may not be comfortable.
In addition, we were faced with limited time on our wedding programme flow. In the end, we decided to explore more covert ways of creating a Buddhist wedding.
Through relating to the Buddha’s core teachings, we incorporated values of gratitude, giving and the recollection of the triple gems into our wedding. We have put together 8 tried and tested tips that will help you make your wedding more Dhamma-centric.
1. Incorporate giving back to society in your wedding programme
Author and her partner share about how the angbaos will go to charity Credits: Lovemetender films
Giving is one of those gifts that keep giving. You can embody the quality of giving in different ways.
For example, purchasing your door gifts from a social enterprise or setting aside some of your wedding hong bao for donation to the charity of your choice.
For our wedding solemnisation, my partner and I purchased honey jars from HoneySpree in support of underprivileged stay-at-home mums to empower them with financial independence. We also donated to Buddhist organisations and a hospice. Sharing that with our guests during the wedding made many smiles as we ended the celebration. When you spread the joy of your wedding celebrations through giving, more can benefit beyond your guest list.
2. Remove the non-essentials
Letting go is even more important than adding on. Identify what are your top 3 priorities and what are the 3 non-essentials in your wedding. For our wedding, my partner and I removed the cake-cutting ceremony as we could not resonate with the symbolic act of cutting a fake cake (non-essential).
We channelled the time saved to meeting and chatting with our guests (priority).
Identifying what are your priorities and non-essentials will help you focus your effort and money on what matters the most to both of you on your big day. For us, it was being present with our guests instead of rushing from table to table.
If you or your partner feels strongly against one or more of your non-essential, have an open chat and come to a consensus before you continue your planning. For us having a wedding planner, Pei Weddings, was helpful in mediating and helping us find common ground when we could not do it ourselves.
Our wedding planner, Pei Yi, helped remind us not to get carried away by the non-essentials and instead refocus on what is important. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness!
3. Replace champagne pouring with non-alcoholic option
Learning to say no is a sign of wisdom and maturity. In a typical Chinese wedding banquet, drinking alcohol and champagne pouring traditionally represent laughter and happiness.
As practising Buddhists who keep our 5 precepts, one of these training principles is to abstain from drinking alcohol. The intent of this precept is to retain our mindfulness and avoid wrong speech and unwholesome actions that could result from consuming alcohol. Thus, protecting oneself from regret and remorse.
My partner and I requested to replace the bottle of complementary champagne with a pot of tea. Funnily, as I typed this, I recalled how the hotel manager double then triple-confirmed with us as this is her first time receiving this request.
We firmly proceeded to replace the alcohol with tea. The outcome was well received. Many of our guests found this segment on 以茶代酒 very intentional yet not imposing our values on them.
4. Carve out time to give a Gratitude Speech
A thank-you speech is meaningful when it is personalised and well thought through. Use the speech to express your gratitude to your family and friends who meant a lot to you.
If you are like me, who is worried about tearing up while giving my speech (and ruining the bridal makeup), you may want to consider recording your speech and screening the video on the actual day.
It will take a lot more time and effort to film and edit the video, but it ensures you cover all grounds in terms of listing everyone you are grateful for.
5. Recite a sutta that resonates with you
Suttas are the teachings of the Buddha and reciting sutta at a wedding gives your guests and yourself an opportunity to reflect on the Buddha’s teachings (bonus benefit: reciting sutta helps to calm you down!).
We recited our favourite sutta Khp 5: Mangala Sutta (we engraved that sutta on our wedding rings too!). We were fortunate as Venerable You Guang, our esteemed wedding guest, not only made time for our wedding but initiated to lead the recitation of the sutta.
Venerable You Guang went the extra mile to explain what the sutta means. I remembered feeling extremely joyous after the recitation. If reciting sutta feels too much for you, you may want to consider extracting quotes (try the Dhammapada!) from your favourite sutta and weaving the quotes into your speech or decorations.
Author and her partner chanting the mangala sutta Credits: Lovemetender films
6. Invite a Buddhist Solemniser
A good solemniser is important, not just in officiating your marriage, but in giving marriage advice and setting the tone for your solemnisation. If you are looking to engage a Buddhist Solemniser, you may wish to contact Bro Henry Baey (Baey Seng Kah), Sis Foo Siew Fong and Venerable You Guang, to name a few.
Having a solemniser that reminds you of the Buddha’s teachings as you say your vows was memorable as opposed to going through the typical signing of documents with template passages.
7. Make vegetarian meals the default, and provide an option for meat
Every good story needs a villain, and vegetarianism is always cast into this role. My partner, who is a vegetarian, wanted to celebrate our marriage with minimal killing of animals.
I supported his cause in raising awareness of the positive impact of vegetarianism.
For our wedding banquet, we took a bold move to make the vegetarian option the default while providing guests with the option to opt-out and consume meat.
At the end of the banquet, we informed guests of the carbon footprint we reduced simply from their intentional choice to eat vegetarian. This helps to reinforce the positive impact of vegetarianism and that we can celebrate without sacrificing the lives of animals.
8. Take things one step at a time: present moment
Amid running all the tasks and errands, don’t forget that we are human beings and not human doing. Being here and now, helps us to reset when the planning gets overwhelming.
Learn to break big tasks into smaller tasks and take things one step at a time. I remembered feeling so burnt out 4 weeks before the wedding and my attitude then was “I can’t wait to get this over and done with” (aversion towards the present moment and living in the future).
Fortunately, my wise friend reminded me to control what I can control and let go of those beyond my control.
This helped me to reset and return to the present moment. It helps to take a break from the wedding planning, and do things that recharge you, before returning to the wedding planning.
My partner and I also gave ourselves mindful breaks in the hotel rest area for us to refresh our minds before the programme’s next segment. This ensured that we were mindful and fully present.
Author & her partner pausing between each segment. Credits: Author’s maid of honour who captured this moment
9. Cheeky bonus: revise 早生贵子 to 早日碾盘
At our third toast (yum seng), instead of wishing the couple the welcoming of babies (早生贵子), our emcee who is a practising Buddhist switched it up and wished us an opportunity to gain enlightenment (早日碾盘). If you know, you know.
At the end of the day, there is no rite or wrong. A beautiful wedding is one where the newlywed comes together harmoniously and lives the virtues of the triple gems. This leaves you with 3 rings: an engagement ring, a wedding ring and caring. Blessed marriage to you!
TLDR: Vesak Day began as a sacred festival to celebrate Buddha’s attainments and teachings, but as with all conditioned phenomena, has evolved, changed and even diluted in some parts of the world. We trace its origins, evolution and how we can skilfully partake in the upcoming Vesak Day celebrations.
The explosion
9 days into May of 1999, in Yasothon, Thailand, a 120kg homemade rocket launched as part of a rocket competition sharply turned around and crashed into the ground with a deafening explosion, brutally killing 4 and wounding 11. This was a tragic conclusion to the otherwise buoyant three days of carousing and festivities that climax in a rocket-launching competition, locally known as the Bun Bang Fai, or Rocket Festival.
Shocking as the accident must have been, centuries of tradition carry a nearly inexorable momentum, and enthusiasm gingerly but surely picked up the following year.
If one so fancies, instead of spending the upcoming Vesak Day holidays visiting the temples of Singapore, or more likely catching the latest Netflix series at home, one can still witness this spectacle of jerry-built missile launches with a short budget flight and a long drive.
Pre-Buddhist fertility rites & Vesak
Although this festival owes its roots to pre-Buddhist fertility rites, its proximity to Vesak Day on the lunar calendar has led many in the region of Northeastern Thailand to associate it with the celebration of birth, enlightenment and passing of the Buddha.
The association is visibly weak though. A modern participant of the event can expect a rowdy start of all-night performances of Mor Lam Sing, which can be best described as a folksy musical of Laotian roots, leavened with wry and increasingly bawdy humour.
This is followed the next day by a procession of traditional dancers with accompanying musicians, with decidedly consumerist influences such as electric guitars.
Everything builds up to the main act of the rocket launching competition, where rockets made by teams sponsored by local companies fire off into the clouds and are judged on apparent height and distance travelled, with extra points for exceptionally ethereal vapour trails.
All throughout the three days, one can expect to see frequent cross-dressing and great quantities of Lao Whiskey consumption, which is a neutral grain spirit with 40-per cent alcohol content.
The evolution of Vesak
Bun Bang Fai stands out as one of the more colourful and adulterated evolutionary branches of Vesak Day celebrations around the world, and it exemplifies the diversity of commemoration forms even within Southeast Asia.
Internationally, Vesak Day was formalised as an official celebration in the first conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists held in Sri Lanka, but as with most official designations, the tradition has a history dating far before that in various Buddhist populations.
Even the etymology of Vesak defies a simple explanation. Vesak comes from the Sanskrit term Vaisakhapaurnami Puja. It is also otherwise known as “Visakkha Puja”, which is an abbreviation from the Pali term “Visakhapunnami Puja”, meaning the worship on the full moon day in the sixth month.
In Thailand, arguably one of the more devoutly Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia, it is likely that the practice was transmitted from Sri Lanka in the Sukothai Era in the 1200s.
When the Sukothai empire declined and fell under the dominion of the neighbouring Ayutthaya kingdom, Vesak celebration was further elevated into a royal and public event, with three days and three nights of official observance.
But after the besieging Burmese forces sacked the city of Ayutthaya and brought the kingdom to its knees in 1767, the sacred ceremony was similarly forgotten.
It was only half a century later, in 1817, at the behest of King Rama II of the present-day Rattanakosin kingdom, in his desire to make supreme merit, that the ceremony was restored.
How it developed in the rest of the region
While Thailand was one of the first countries in Southeast Asia to import this tradition, Vesak Day celebrations continued to find purchase in other parts of the region much later too.
Indonesia celebrated its first Waisak Day, as is locally known, in 1983. Today, it is enshrined as a national public holiday. While it is more actively observed in pockets of the population throughout the archipelago, the centrepiece happens at the Borobudur Temple at Magelang, where thousands of monks chant and meditate, before culminating in the Pindapata.
Closer to home in Malaysia and Singapore, Vesak Day was celebrated mostly by the ethnic Chinese, Thai and Sri Lankan populace. The first recorded mention of its observance was a notice in The Straits Times by jeweller B.P. de Silva, informing readers that his shop would be closed for the celebrations on 8 May 1925.
In Singapore in particular, it was only gazetted as a national holiday in 1956. The exact day of celebration was contested between the Singapore Buddhist Association, and other Buddhist groups, in particular the Buddhist Union, due to a technicality about when the full moon and lunar eclipse fell that year.
The customs of celebrations are quite varied even in Singapore and Malaysia. It ranges from the usual gathering of worshippers to meditate on the precepts, chant and make donations, to the washing of the Buddha statue, to colourful parades in Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur.
The changes over time
As we can see in this quick run-through of the history of Vesak Day, diversity and changes are an undeniable part of nature.
The celebration of Vesak Day, as a conditioned phenomenon, is subject to constant change. In some eras and geographies, it arose due to the presence of favourable conditions, persisted for some time, and inevitably decayed when the causes disappeared.
And so it goes, arising, persisting and passing away. Other than a reminder of the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena, it is also an arresting reminder that this current period when Vesak Day And Buddhism are still remembered as precious is not a given in the future.
It is not a given that the motivated ones among us can access teachings faithful to the source in the future. This reminds us that learning or listening to the Dhamma is an opportunity to be cherished with urgency.
Back to the Original spirit
Ying Cong (Contributor) and his partner at a Buddhist Event
And thus, given how rare and transient the favourable conditions we presently enjoy are in the long arc of history, I urge my fellow brothers and sisters to look past the rituals surrounding the Vesak Day holiday and connect with its original spirit – by recalling the inspiration and relevance of Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinibbana to our daily practice.
As the Buddha exhorted the monks, and one can imagine, all his future followers, “It may be that after I am gone that some of you will think, ‘now we have no teacher.’ But that is not how you should see it. Let the Dharma and the discipline that I have taught be your teacher. All individual things pass away. Strive on, untiringly.”
Let us honour this upcoming Vesak Day with not just material dana (charitable offerings), but also spiritual ones. Apply ourselves generously in all interactions and even in our meditations. Hopefully one day, such beneficial practices find their place in the event programme of Bun Bang Fai, alongside the rocket launches.
Beyond following the many celebrations in Singapore and Malaysia, you can read super interesting stories of the Buddha from Buddhist scholar Sylvia Bay or check out a monk’s heavy research in demystifying the enlightened teacher, the Buddha. If you aren’t the reader type, join our 30-day meditation challenge to kick start your peaceful journey that Buddha set out 2,600 years back.
Wise steps:
Observe impermanence and unsatisfactoriness in even the most sacred of rituals, for they are also conditioned phenomenon
Look past the myriad forms of Vesak Day celebrations and connect with its original spirit – that of recalling the Dhamma and applying it in our lives tirelessly
More than any other public holiday, make a concerted effort to practise generously this coming Vesak Day
