A Belgian engineer married a woman from Vietnam's Pa Co ethnic community in a three-day traditional wedding in Hue, bringing 11 pigs, 10 chickens, goats and other offerings in accordance with her family's customs, reports VnExpress of Vietnam.
Le Thi Kim Sieu, 30, and Cools Nick Dirk, 35, celebrated their marriage in the highlands of A Luoi, with the groom wearing traditional brocade clothing and joining the bride's family in prayers to deities, drinking rice wine and singing.
The ceremony marked the culmination of their relationship, which began more than two years earlier and involved long periods apart.
In 2023, after a business setback, she left her hometown for the ancient town of Hoi An in Da Nang to work at a tailor shop and start a new life.
In March 2024, she met the chemical engineer based in Antwerp, Belgium, on a dating app at a time when he was visiting Vietnam for a friend's wedding and holiday.
After a few days of exchanging messages, he visited the shop where she worked along with his friends to get some clothes made. The gentle way she spoke and patience with which she dealt with customers caught his attention immediately.
"I liked her from the very first moment we met," Dirk says.
That evening, he invited Sieu to dinner, and the following day she invited him to a yoga session. Throughout his week in Hoi An, the two strolled around the ancient town together.
Before departing, he said he was in love with her and invited her to join his friends on a trip to northern Vietnam, but she declined, saying she did not feel a romantic spark.
Unable to convince her, Dirk continued his journey to the highlands of Ha Giang in the northern Tuyen Quang Province as planned.
But he called and messaged her every evening. She always replied, but she made sure to end their conversations before 10 p.m. to go to sleep.
"I always felt our conversation was left unfinished, leaving me wanting more," he recalls.
After a week, the Belgian decided to pull out of his group, cancel the trip, and return to Hoi An. Sieu was stunned as she saw him step off a motorbike taxi ride in front of her tailor shop with his luggage.
"I started to develop fond feelings for him after seeing him travel such a long way back just to see me," she says.
Over the next two weeks in Hoi An, he went wherever she did: visiting the tailor shop, waiting outside her yoga studio to take her out for meals, walk along the beach, or sightsee in Da Nang City.
After learning that Sieu was having financial troubles following her unsuccessful business venture, he offered to help her, but she declined.
On one occasion, when he tried to kiss her, she pulled away, feeling the relationship was moving too quickly.
Understanding her feelings, he chose to be patient. Before he flew back home, she promised she would give him her answer in six months’ time.
Back in Europe, despite his long working hours as a researcher, Dirk called her every day.
From their conversations, he learned about her childhood in an ethnic minority farming family in central Vietnam. She learned that he was the youngest son in a family that once owned a farm in Belgium, and that his research kept him busy from morning to night.
Eventually, she realized that the thing she looked forward to most every day was Dirk’s phone calls. She began to miss him whenever they couldn't talk. Meanwhile, he sent flowers and gifts on holidays and her birthday to make up for the distance.
In October 2024, Dirk flew to Vietnam and professed his love for a second time, and this time, she said yes.
Over their two-year long-distance relationship that followed, disagreements over daily habits, time differences, and physical distance led Sieu to suggest breaking up several times. Each time, Dirk would ask her to voice her concerns so that they could resolve them together, rather than staying silent. Once they found common ground, they decided to get married.
At the wedding in early October, the bride's family organized all the traditional Pa Co rituals to report the marriage to their ancestors, and pray for peace for the young couple.
According to the bride's family customs, the groom was required to prepare wedding offerings consisting of 10 chickens, 11 pigs, a pair of male and female goats, 16 pairs of bowls and mats, 2 gongs, along with gold, silver, and money.
"I was surprised by the number of offerings required, but I was ready to provide them out of respect for her family's cultural pride," Dirk says.
On the first day, the groom brought the offerings to the bride's house for the engagement ceremony, where Sieu's family prepared six feast tables to welcome guests. On the second day, since Dirk’s parents in Belgium were unable to travel to Vietnam, her family rented a local venue to represent the groom's home for the bridal procession.
The couple took part in a ritual confirming a 70-kilogram pig as one of the groom's offerings before it was prepared for the wedding feast.
They then prayed at the altar and fed each other banh a quat, a traditional Pa Co sticky rice cake symbolizing love, along with other customary dishes.
On the third day, the couple returned to the bride's home and completed the final wedding ceremony in the presence of relatives and neighbors.
The newlyweds have yet to decide whether to settle permanently in Vietnam or Belgium. Sieu wants to remain close to her parents in Hue to care for them, while Dirk's family lives in Belgium. For now, they intend to divide their time between the two countries.
Looking back on their journey over the past two years, the Belgian engineer believes that his decision to cut his trip short and return to Hoi An that year has changed his life.
"I traveled thousands of kilometers to Vietnam following a tourist map, but in the end, the most important destination was the place where the person I wanted to meet was," Dirk says. -- VnExpress/Vietnam News
