‘Dragon King’ of Bhutan marries non-royal
She was a shy 21-year-old student, plucked from obscurity to become a royal bride. A familiar story but this time the setting was Bhutan, as Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller reports.
The bride was Jetsun Pema and her groom, King Jigme. The scenes were perhaps even more flamboyant than the royal wedding in Britain.
Nicknamed the “Dragon King”, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck wed his young bride in an ancient Himalayan fortress. The couple sipped a chalice of ambrosia symbolising eternal life in a Buddhist ceremony that has brought media attention from around the world to the normally reclusive kingdom.
In a nation of 700,000 people where television was only introduced in 1999, the ceremony was broadcast live. Thousands of people, dressed in traditional coloured robes, stood outside. Monks chanted as white incense drifted through the morning mist.
Photo gallery: Fairytale wedding in pictures
Oxford-educated Wangchuck, 31, leads Bhutan, a landlocked state in South Asia at the eastern end of the Himalyas, slowly embraces democracy.
His father abdicated in 2006 to introduce parliamentary elections. The monarchy is seen as helping stabilise a fragile democracy wedged between India and China.
“I am happy. I have been waiting quite some time,” the king told reporters after the ceremony.
“She is a wonderful human being, intelligent. Her and I share one big thing in common – love and passion for art.”
As the mist slowly lifted, Buddhist horns sounded across the Punakha valley as the bride arrived in a procession of singers, relatives and Buddhist monks across an ancient footbridge, led by a white horse. Baby elephants guarded one of the fortress’s entrances.