Royal for a Day

When you walk into many homes in Phnom Penh you often see a big gold picture frame or many frames (depending on how many generations are under one roof) posted on the wall right when you come inside the door. The frame holds one of the couple's wedding photos in which they are royally decked out from head to toe in Khmer traditional clothing. Sometimes the couple is so done up that it barely looks like them.

Ryan and I decided that it would be fun to have some Khmer pictures done to celebrate our 3rd anniversary.

These places are everywhere so we called around and then decided on a place that was $24 for the whole ordeal: an hour of getting ready, taking the photos and 6 prints, Tack on $2 more and you can get a CD so you can share online. Let the fun begin!

It all started with lots and lots and lots of make-up: whitening make-up. In the pictures it ended up looking good, but in real life it was a bit scary. This is the Khmer way though. You can never go too big; when I go to weddings I sometimes don't initially recognize my friends.

Then came the hair. They fixed my hair and then added fake hair too! I know a friend with blond hair that had pictures done and they even added some nice black hair in the back for her. Go big or go home I guess. Note the hair hanging on the wall in the back of the picture below.

After the hair they dressed both of us. Ryan just had to roll up his jeans and they put his outfit right on top of his clothes. The pants are basically a really nice tablecloth that gets wrapped around until it transforms into a pair of pants. My outfit took a little more work as they had to wrap it and then pin it all different kind of ways. It is not possible to get dressed by yourself so when people have weddings the rental of the clothes also come with people who come on sight and help you get dressed. A normal bride will change 7-8 times throughout the wedding festivities that usually last all day. It's a lot of work as these clothes tend to be heavy and uncomfortable.

The sweet girl who did my make-up and hair. It was fun to chat with her throughout the whole process.

Then came pictures in front of the white screen. The photographer would come and tilt our heads and hands just so to get the normal Khmer pose. 

Then we returned the next day to pick up the final product complete, with backgrounds and some photo shopping.

Our Khmer friends are now telling us we need to get a big copy printed and put it on the wall inside the door. Maybe we will. :)

-Melissa