Yogyakarta to hold royal wedding in October

If London had its royal wedding earlier this year in April, this October the Palace of Yogyakarta Hadiningrat will be the setting for Java’s own grand royal wedding between Princess Gusti Raden Ajeng Nur Astuti Wijareni, youngest daughter of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, and Achmad Ubaidillah. Scheduled to take place on October 18, 2011, the date chosen for this memorable occasion has been carefully determined through ancient and sophisticated Javanese calculations based on the dates of birth of both the bride and the groom.

Daughter of Sultan Hamengkubuwono X of Yogyakarta and the staff member of the office of the Indonesia’s Vice President originating from Lampung in Sumatra, will tie the knot during a full royal Javanese ceremony. As for colors used for this happy occasion, the princess said that the couple will use white-orange during the “Ijab Qabul” or wedding vows ceremony and white-green during the evening wedding reception. “Orange is my favorite color, and green is the color of the Yogya Palace,” said the princess as reported by Vivanews.com.

The Ijab Qabul ceremony will take place at the Penenpen Mosque at 0730 hours in the morning. The royal Sultanate family will also adopt the Kirab Temanten or the Royal Wedding Parade, which was also conducted for the wedding of Sultan Hamengku Buwono VII, proceeding from the Keraton or Palace to the Kepatihan. The parade will use 5 royal horse carriages, with the newlyweds riding in the Jongwiyat, a horse carriage built in 1880.

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.

This year, the Jogja Java Carnival 2011 has purposely chosen the theme: “Magniworld,” presenting the magnificent world. “We hope the theme can establish Yogyakarta as the home of the world’s arts. Yogyakarta is the perfect place to express arts and cultural expressions,” said Ferry Astono, chairman of the committee for Yogyakarta’s 255th anniversary, as reported by travel.kompas.com. The Jogja Java Carnival 2011 will maintain the concept of a night carnival, and this year it will parade the wonders of the world, art performances, and appearances by foreign art troupes.