A Muong wedding tradition that was slowly disappearing in Ninh Binh has been brought back to life through years of community efforts to preserve its rituals, music and customs.
The growing influence of modern life had gradually eroded many traditional Muong wedding rituals in Quang Lac Commune, formerly part of Nho Quan District and now Yen Son Ward in Ninh Binh Province. Faced with the prospect of losing them altogether, local people began working to revive and preserve cultural practices that had accompanied generations of their community.
The groom’s family brings ceremonial offerings to the bride’s family to formally discuss the marriage. Photo: N.L
According to village elders, a traditional Muong wedding was once an elaborate sequence of closely connected rituals. These included the choc san courtship custom, the first formal meeting between the families, marriage discussions, the engagement ceremony, the presentation of wedding gifts, the wedding itself and the newlyweds’ post-wedding visit to the bride’s family.
Each ritual embodies respect between the two families, the bonds of the wider community and the values that have long shaped the spiritual and social life of the Muong people.
One of the most distinctive features of a traditional wedding is the sound of gongs ringing out during the celebrations, accompanied by hat dum, a form of courtship singing performed as an exchange between representatives of the groom’s and bride’s families.
A wedding procession in traditional Muong clothing. Photo: N.L
These performances are not merely a way of offering blessings to the newly married couple. They also allow the community to pass down songs, ways of speaking and generations of folk knowledge.
Just over 30 years ago, Muong weddings still retained many of these distinctive characteristics. The groom and older men would typically wear traditional dark-brown shirts, while the bride, older women and young women dressed in traditional attire, including the graceful Muong skirt.
Wedding feasts centered largely on local cuisine, accompanied by ruou can, a traditional fermented drink sipped through long bamboo straws as families and neighbors gathered together.
Over time, however, these customs began to fade. Modern weddings, with more mainstream clothing and ceremonies, replaced many traditional practices, putting the distinctive cultural world surrounding Muong marriage at risk of being forgotten.
Ceremonial offerings brought by the groom’s family to the bride’s family. Photo: N.L
The groom’s wedding procession makes its way to the bride’s home. Photo: N.L
In 2017, Bui Thi Nam, a Muong woman born in 1961 in Yen Son, began a personal journey to revive her community’s traditional wedding.
Determined to preserve cultural values that were gradually disappearing, Nam developed a detailed ceremony script herself, collected historical materials and approached authorities with proposals to jointly research and reconstruct the tradition.
“My grandparents, my parents and I all had weddings following our traditional customs,” Nam said. “But when my daughter got married, her wedding was already held in the modern style. That stayed on my mind, and I became determined to revive this beautiful tradition so future generations could better understand the culture of their people.”
Village elders and representatives of both families perform the rituals for presenting offerings and formally entrusting the bride and groom to their new families. Photo: N.L
Traditional Muong wedding customs in Yen Son are gradually being preserved and revived after decades of decline. Photo: N.L
After years of preparation, the traditional Muong wedding in Yen Son was reconstructed in 2023, more than three decades after many of its practices had faded. The project involved cooperation between the local authorities, the Ninh Binh Department of Culture and Sports, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
According to Nam, one particularly important stage of a Muong wedding is the ritual for deciding the wedding date, a custom commonly referred to by people in the lowlands as di choi nha, literally “visiting the family’s home.”
Once the bride’s family gives its consent, the groom’s family prepares offerings including liquor, chicken, banh chung - square sticky rice cakes - and horn-shaped cakes before proceeding with the next rituals.
Representatives of the groom’s and bride’s families greet each other during the wedding ceremony. Photo: N.L
A traditional Muong wedding comprises a sequence of rituals deeply rooted in the community’s cultural identity. Photo: N.L
The traditional wedding setting also vividly demonstrates the role of the wider community. Village elders and representatives of both families take part in presenting the offerings and formally entrusting the bride and groom to their new families. Relatives and neighbors join the celebration through gong performances, courtship songs and traditional communal feasts.
For the Muong community in Yen Son, the revival gained even greater significance in early 2026, when the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism added the locality’s traditional Muong wedding to Vietnam’s National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage under the category of social practices and beliefs.
The Muong people of Yen Son trace their roots to Muong Vang in the former Hoa Binh Province. Their ancestors migrated to the area around 300-400 years ago.
A Muong wedding is not merely the union of a couple but also a profound ritual of community bonding. Photo: N.L
Across generations, traditional weddings became an important part of community life, reflecting Muong ideas about family and community as well as the bonds connecting people to their homeland.
The heritage’s distinctive value lies in the way it brings together marriage rituals, hat dum courtship singing, gong culture and the characteristic co la, a traditional feast in which dishes are arranged and served on leaves.
Reviving and preserving the traditional wedding therefore does more than safeguard the cultural identity of the Muong people. It also adds another layer to Ninh Binh’s rich cultural landscape as local traditions navigate the currents of modern life and integration.
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