Experience Of Going To A Church Wedding Theology Religion Essay Example

8:30 am. In contrast to traditional Malay weddings that span three days, this ceremony only lasted two and a half hours.

In Malay weddings, it is common for everyone to go to the mosque on the second day for the official marriage ceremony, similar in significance to a church wedding. While being late is acceptable in Malay weddings, punctuality is crucial in church weddings. This difference highlights how social status still plays a role despite growing up in a multicultural environment.

When I arrived at the venue, I found myself sitting alone on the fifth row on the right side, facing the communion table. At first, I felt disappointed that my friend was seated ahead of me in the second row. However, I soon realized that everyone on my row were high school friends of the groom who turned out to be friendly and nice individuals.

It became apparent that seating arrangements were based on relationships with family and friends – something I had never realized held significance until attending this particular ceremony.

The ceremony then began informally as an organ played a melodyThe church atmosphere was unexpectedly disrupted when the quiet conversations suddenly turned into music. I was taken aback by the suddenness of it all, as I had assumed there would be an announcement to signal the start of the wedding. What surprised me even more was how composed everyone remained, despite the organist's unexpected performance. It occurred to me that guests who were unfamiliar with church weddings might not know exactly when they were supposed to begin.

In conclusion, my experience of witnessing and participating in a church wedding allowed me to recognize certain communication challenges between

two cultures celebrating a similar event.

Problem statement

Although there may be differences between Malay and Australian cultures, the actual wedding ceremony does not present many difficulties in terms of interacting with Malay culture. However, complications arise when these two groups come together, leading to misunderstandings and subcultural differences. It is important to consider the stages of perceptual experience process in order to address this issue.

Despite being receptive to various cultures, individuals tend to revert back to their own cultural influences due to its impact on perception. Perception refers to how individuals absorb and use sensory information by selecting, organizing, and interpreting it. Our perceptions significantly shape our behavior.During a personal example, I had the opportunity to observe the significance of punctuality in Australian culture compared to a similar event in Malay culture. In the first phase of perception, which involves selection, individuals choose what they see and disregard everything else. This includes selective perception and selective exposure. For instance, when deciding which video to watch, I tend to focus on promptness using selective perception. Selective exposure occurs when someone only exposes themselves to beliefs that support their position rather than considering other perspectives. In my case, I both supported and questioned this practice as it didn't seem like a big deal. The second stage of perception is classification, where perceived impressions are organized in the mind for open response. This entails categorizing stimuli into different groups. In my situation, I classified the two perspectives into Malay culture and Australian culture. This classification process can lead to either positive or negative reactions depending on the presence of ingroups and outgroups; interpretations may result in potential negative outcomes.Malay

culture represents my ingroup, which is a membership group characterized by internal coherence among its members. The norms, aspirations, and values of this culture shape our behavior. The interpretation stage of the perception process involves using familiar elements and existing knowledge to understand stimuli. At this point, I had already determined that promptness was not a major concern and started questioning my friend's behavior after the wedding. It can be misleading as individuals in similar situations may react differently, such as jumping to conclusions instead of asking questions.

Subculture plays a role in influencing perceptions, particularly media culture and regional culture. Observing the bride and groom leaving in a Mercedes made me realize how subcultures influenced my perceptions. Not everyone prefers prevailing modern culture; some appreciate deviations from cultural norms. Younger generations reject aspects of past cultures to create their own while others adopt new trends to reshape the norm. Media culture impacts specific groups within society, shaping their identity.

The conflicting subcultures of the bride and groom could have affected the wedding outcome differently. The bride grew up in Australia and always dreamed of having a wedding in Eden. On the other hand, despite spending half his life in Australia, the groom preferred a simple wedding as he mostly grew up in Singapore.
The wedding was a blend of both subcultures, as the groom chose to embrace the local culture. However, in Malay culture, such fusion would result in a family feud due to its collectivized nature and interdependent decision-making. Before attending this wedding, I believed that modern weddings often disregard traditional church values. However, this wedding proved otherwise as they held a proper church ceremony with

written vows and real flowers. Media influence had led me to believe that weddings had to be grand with bells and extravagant decorations. I also thought that only relatives and friends of the couple would be included while others judged and excluded. To my surprise, both families warmly welcomed me and spread love through their children to others. When I mentioned my assignment focusing on their wedding, they were even more excited about it. The groom's father went ahead and invited me for tea the next day where he shared additional insights about the couple, deepening my understanding of the cultural significance behind a church wedding. This experience served as a reminder of how I still have several shortcomings when it comes to embracing different cultures despite my multicultural upbringing.

This text highlights the importance of acknowledging one's limitations in embracing different cultures.