For some young Cambodian refugees and their families in the U.S., having a traditional Cambodian wedding helped keep them connected to the culture of the war-torn homeland they left behind in the mid-1970s and 1980s. For Khung Sokunthea of Seattle and her groom, Hin Chanrotha of Sterling, VA, this meant a marriage arranged by their families and a daylong wedding celebration that mixed Hindu and Buddhist traditions with Cambodian folklore. The ceremony began with a processional of the groom and his family and friends, and included several changes of wedding costume, and ceremonies symbolizing the couple’s passage from their previous lives into their new life together.

As part of the wedding, the bride and groom take part in the traditional haircut ceremony, a ritual symbolizing the cutting away of the old and a new start in life. While the couple sits in adjacent chairs, the achar, a specialist in the ritual, dances around them holding a pair of scissors and pretending to snip at the hair of the couple, chasing away evil spirits, and bringing good luck. Here, Prak Sarim, right, wielding scissors and a comb, approaches Khung Sokunthea and and Hin Chanrotha, left, while family and friends look on.

Caption information source: “Traditional wedding links Cambodians with their past” by Evelyn Iritani, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 4, 1989, pp. 15-16.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.