Sri Lanka and South Africa

Posted on Tue June 7, 2022.

After a few days of rain, the sun came out for the colourful wedding of Luthando and Thamali who shared their vows with each other in front of 41 friends and family at the Rondekuil Venue on Friday, the 27th of June. Dressed in her wedding gown, Thamalie was stylish, elegant and radiant, and Luthando was a dashingly handsome figure in his designer suit. Luthando is from Johannesburg and Thamalie from Sri Lanka, and the handsome couple met each other “in flight” so to speak, as Thamalie is an air hostess and Luthando is part of the cabin crew. They dated for 2 years before Luthando popped the question, quite by surprise a few months ago, and then they decided to host their wedding in Cape Town, before jetting off to Sri Lanka for their honeymoon, then coming back to South Africa to settle in Johannesburg.

The joining of the two different cultures made for a very interesting wedding ceremony indeed.  Close family of Thamali flew down to Cape Town to help organise the wedding and Seunethra, the mother of the bride brought a few Sri Lankan wedding traditions along with her. She prepared a tray of traditional Sri Lankan Sweets, which included delicacies such as asmee, kokis, aluwa, mung kavum and konda kavum, all displayed on a bed of beetle leaves.  Seunethra also brought out her traditional brass oil lamp which is an age old Sri Lankan tradition at weddings.  The bridal couple lit the brass oil lamp together, as it has two wicks, and this is to signify the start of a bright new future together as husband and wife.

The cutting of the wedding cake together is another tradition which is highly adhered to within the Sri Lankan culture.

Both the mother-of-the-bride and the mother-of-the-bridegroom dressed in traditional outfits.  Seunethra, who is the mother-of-the-bride wore a beautiful hand woven Kandyan Sari, decorated with beads and pearls which were hand stitched onto the garment. Daphne, the mother-of-the-bridegroom, wore a striking traditional Xhosa outfit.

Thamali’s family from Sri Lanka enjoyed a few days at Rondekuil Estates, soaking up the breathtaking scenery, and doing a bit of sight-seeing as well, before leaving to go back to their country.