Sara Wedding

Sera, wan misis wearem wan island dress! Mo wan bigfala laplap


tufala papa blong danis


Having been back to NZ for a couple of weddings, my turn to experience the Vanuatu version finally dawned. A friend of mine, Marie-Michelle (whom I met on the Sarafenua going to Pentecost) was going to a wedding in a village called Sara, and wondered if I’ld like to accompany her.

Since it was a special occasion and all, we decided to get some island dresses made for the day… luckily in a Tahitian style which is a little less flouncy than the Vanuatu ‘motherhubbard’ dresses. So with an early morning wakeup, we headed up to Sara.

In classic Vanuatu fashion, there was plenty of ‘spel smol’. We arrived to rain and found shelter in the porch of a house. The church ceremony was due to start at 10am, but at the designated time, the bride, groom and wedding parties were still milling around in their general daywear. With a fair amount of rushing around, eventually the wedding parties emerged.

While there are some similarities with the generic western ‘white wedding’ there is plenty of island style:
- Island dresses and shirts for Africa: The families of the bride and groom each have a uniform, consisting of island dresses and island shirts in the same material. This not only adds colour to the day, but allows all the extended family to be involved.
- Cutting the cake straight after the wedding. The tradition of the cake as a dessert hasn’t quite reached Vanuatu wedding planners
- playplay blong man Ambae mo man Pentecost. Throughout the day you’re lible to get a dollop of baby powder or glitter from your favourite mama
- Doing the ‘island shuffle’ to Zouk music (it must just be the preferred music for weddings here?!)

Following the presentation of gifts from ol man Pentecost, the wedding feast was presented: massive laplaps prepared for different groups by different families in Sara Village. Each laplap is given to certain groups: uncles of the couple, mama’s, papa’s etc. I ended up at the mama’s laplap (being of an age where I should have had at least 4 pikinini by now) so sat down to a feast of yam laplap witem pork mo island cabbage.

Then it was time for wan smol dance before mifala ko bak long Luganville. By this stage all the mama’s were drinking cordial and home brewed whisky and having a great time dancing in a mass of colour, “whoop whoops!”, singing and laughing, so we had to join in with them. By this stage both the bride and groom were very inebriated, and were eventually helped home by a gaggle of mamas. Also joining in were three old fula’s who had by the looks of it been drinking (and dancing) all day. Was great to finally see plenty of mama’s dancing and a nice way to end the day.