During a combination funeral and wedding ceremony in Thailand’s Surin province, a man married his deceased girlfriend of ten years. The man, Chadil Deffy, also known as Deff Yingyuen, married Sarinya ‘Anne’ Kamsook during the ceremony.
Even though the couple was planning to get married in the future, Yingyuen was focused on his academics before getting tied down. Before the couple could set a wedding date, Kamsook died unexpectedly following an accident. The two met at Thailand’s Eastern Asia University close to ten years ago. Following Kamsook’s death, wreaths were displayed all around campus in her honor. Many thought the service was a bit strange but others felt sympathy for the groom.
“…I didn’t know her, but in your photos, she looks young and full of life. I can’t image the impact her death has caused in the lives of her loved ones. It was a very moving gesture of love, very moving. It makes you rethink a lot of things in life, things you take for granted,” Facebook user Alejandra Yanez wrote in Spanish on Yingyuen’s page.
One friend of the groom, Onsiri Pravattiyagul, submitted an opinion column to the Bangkok Times that discussed the media coverage of the story and included a passage that is below:
Chadil wrote matter-of-factly online — and would later give interviews in the same vein — explaining that the motivation for this display was guilt, pure and simple: He felt he hadn’t done enough for his girlfriend of 10 years while she was alive. Before her sudden death in a road accident, she had suggested that he marry her. But he had demurred, putting the idea on hold.
The “wedding” was his attempt to right a wrong, however belated the gesture might have been.
