Nice day for a wet wedding

Charley and Theresa Riley, of Auckland, married for 11 years, renewed their vows at the Trang mass underwater wedding ceremony.

A shoal of angel fish has appeared in the Bangkok airport hotel. They trip to and fro, some carrying bits of paper, some participants, and all en route to the big event in Southern Thailand. The girl fish wears a veil and pink lipstick; the boy sports a bow tie. Together they proclaim "the sweetest ceremony", the Trang Underwater Wedding 2005.

We are an army of T-shirt wearers; an international tour group with one aim in mind - to don scuba gear and get hitched in one of the oddest mass mating rituals around, or to cover it for the world's bewildered press.

Trang Province is on the Southern Andaman Coast, tucked away to the southeast of Phuket and Krabi. Its shores largely escaped the horrors of the Boxing Day tsunami, although two people died when 2m waves swamped the beaches and pier.

But the good people of Trang have cleaned up and moved on. The Underwater Wedding is in its tenth year and the Valentine's Day romance fest is a chance for the town and its environs to put on its cultural glad rags and welcome guests from around the world.

The party begins when we touch down at Trang Airport. Our plane is packed with Thais, Spaniards, Germans, Swedes, Taiwanese, Chinese, Italians, Malaysians, Koreans, Americans, Filipinos, Danes, Norwegians, Greeks - 48 couples and New Zealanders Charley and Theresa Riley, who have been married for 11 years but chose to renew their vows wearing rubber. (Never ones to take the path well trodden, their first ceremony was Auckland's first medieval wedding, which also attracted media coverage.) The licensed PADI divers own Dive HQ in Westhaven and Greenlane and loved the idea of expressing their passion for each other through their passion for being beneath the waves.

They emerge from the plane waving a New Zealand flag and join the others on the runway amid a friendly riot of dancing and drum-beating from Thais wearing costumes that represent their country's provinces and religions. Thai women throw bougainvillea blossoms and bestow garlands. Pink hearts and smooching angel fish are everywhere. The welcoming speeches are the first of many bureaucratic blessings we will hear over the next three days.

We pile on to a fleet of air-conditioned buses and charge into town to the sanctuary of a large hotel.

In the afternoon we travel by bus to City Hall for the proper parade. People wear glorious silks and golden adornments. Girls are lacquered and lippied like baby goddesses, their mums carry colourful woven dowry bags and the traditional klongyao (long drum) bands are a fluoro explosion of red, green, pink and orange.

We sit on the hot tarmac, serenaded by the Wichienmatu Marching Band and the magnified sound of the blood coursing around our overheated brains.

Eventually the couples descend the steps beneath another pink-heart arch and are each joined by a pair of Thai beauties. When everyone is in line and the cameras have stopped clicking, the parade begins its triumphant journey through the town: our couple smiling and waving like the good sports they are.

Dinner that night is an open-air affair at Somdej Prasrinakarin Park. Trees are swathed in glitter and lights and the special guests sit in chairs covered with white satin and pink or blue bows. There is a Chinese banquet and a 13-piece cha-cha band, local pop singers, cultural dancing and more speeches and blessings.

By the end of the evening, the band has migrated from Hernando's Hideaway to a form of traditional-Thai-techno-trance, and the dancers are hoofing up a storm to keep up with them.

I am fading, but spring to attention when the fireworks display starts. It's impressive, especially when fireworks in the shape of hearts explode in the night sky.

Then, it's the big day. We travel by bus with police escort out to Pak Meng beach. It's a picture-postcard Thai beach, but without the development of Phuket.

The couples are on to their third change of clothes and this is where the ceremonial fun begins. Amid more cultural dancing and music, the grooms are escorted to their brides through a pink-heart arch, and the first group is seated at a long table, exquisitely draped in white silk and decorated with satin and flowers.

Charley and Theresa are the first couple to be blessed in Thai Buddhist style: garlands are placed around their necks by the local celebrant, then white "holy strings", which are joined to symbolise togetherness, are placed on their heads. Three white dots are dabbed on their foreheads. Finally, they place their hands on blue silk cushions to receive the "lustre water" a holy blessing for their continued happiness.

As the celebrant moves along the line, I wander off to examine the "wedding clams" in a shaded tank. It's a nice touch that mixes conservation and tradition: people from the fisheries ministry have superglued each couple's name on to their own personal baby giant clam - an endangered species which will be released later in the day and monitored. Couples will receive yearly photos and updates of their clam: a bit like child sponsorship, except that the clams won't write back.

It's time to put on the rubber suits. Charley and Theresa don their scuba gear and wetsuits and join the first group. They whiz offshore in motorised longboats and do the weirdest part of this weird bus tour. The couples dive down about 4m, 10 at a time, forming a queue at a platform on the seabed. There, they sign the marriage certificate, smile for the camera, pull off their regulators, steal a kiss and then go back to the surface.

The "wedding night" is a triumph of romantic optimism over New Zealand practicality. The couples, in beachwear, this time join the rest of us in a fabulous Thai feast at Rajamongkol Beach, a stunning bay.

We are serenaded by a classical quartet and a Thai pop singer. Someone with a bubble machine is on hand to perpetuate that underwater theme as he sings, and little girls dressed as angels lead the couples through archways decorated with white orchids.

Soon, the water is aglow with candles and the couples are given blue-iced cupcakes with pink hearts. What could be next?

The answer is lanterns, which the couples release to the heavens. We party away, accompanied by more speeches and blessings, but there is one more little surprise in store.

As we leave, each of us is given a souvenir "snowdome", complete with glitter, kissing fish and the words "Trang Underwater Wedding Ceremony". I will never forget this night.

After so much love, the final event the next morning is almost a comedown. In the "Love Garden" at the Peninsula Botanic Gardens, couples plant Sri-Trang trees, the violet-flowered symbol of the province, and yellow-flowered Cassias, Thailand's national tree, in heart-shaped holes to commemorate the wedding. The progress of the trees, like the baby giant clams, will be recorded and sent to their planters each year.

The couples leave for Bangkok and different destinations around the world, taking with them suitcases full of garlands, holy strings, fish-imprinted chocolates, snowdomes, T-shirts, photos, an unusual marriage certificate and indelible memories of three insanely romantic days in Thailand.

It has been "the sweetest ceremony", all right.

* Diana Balham travelled to Thailand courtesy of Thai Airways.

Getting there

Thai Airways flies from Auckland to Bangkok 10 times a week. Basic fares start from $1499 but special fares sometimes apply.