When Kerry Hill designed a small hotel on the east coast of Bali, which opened in 1994 as the Balina Serai, he was given a single instruction: work around the coconut trees and give every room a view of the sea. The hotel is now Alila Manggis, and the palms still decide how it works, a wedding included. Vows are made on a lawn at the edge of the beach or in the Coconut Grove, dinner is served beneath the same trees, and the guests sleep in thatched pavilions turned towards the strait and the island of Nusa Penida.
A coconut grove below Mount Agung
The land was a beachfront coconut grove of 2.3 hectares near the village of Candidasa, in the regency of Karangasem, bought by an owner who had come to know the east coast on diving trips. Hill, an Australian who founded his practice in Singapore in 1979, had finished Amanusa on Bali in 1992, and his hotels did much to define what is now called the Bali style. He received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2001 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2006. The Serai opened under GHM Hotels, a group affiliated with Aman.
What he built is low and quiet. The rooms sit in two storey pavilions modelled on the wantilan, the Balinese village meeting hall, under roofs of alang alang thatch. Superior rooms take the ground floor, each with a private terrace; Deluxe rooms take the floor above, each with a balcony and a day bed. Every room and suite is angled to the beach for the view across the water, and the pavilions stand around an oblong pool in the middle of a lawn planted with palms. Inland rises Mount Agung, at 3,031 metres the highest point on Bali and its most sacred mountain, with Pura Besakih, the mother temple, high on its slopes.
Vows on the lawn above the beach
Ceremonies are held by the sea or under the palms. In the resort’s wedding packages the ceremony takes place on the Ocean Front Lawn, kept for the couple from four in the afternoon until seven, beneath a bamboo pergola shaded with white linen and dressed with tropical flowers. Umbul-umbul, the tall Balinese ceremonial flags, mark out the setting and an aisle of petals runs to the altar. Two Balinese girls in traditional dress walk with the bride in the procession, while a rindik, the bamboo gamelan, plays with a flute. A celebrant leads the ceremony, and the couple receive a commemorative certificate.
The packages scale from a couple marrying alone to the whole resort. Simply for Two pairs the ceremony with three nights in a Seaside Suite and a candlelit dinner by the sea. Garden of Love is written for 20 guests and the Oceanfront Wedding for 50, each with rooms for two nights. The Resort Exclusivity Buyout hands over the entire resort for two nights, with dinner for 110 guests.
The resort can also stage a traditional Balinese wedding, with the natural blessing, a bridal procession, a cocktail reception and a Balinese dinner, held in the grounds, at a location outside them, or across both. Two of those outside settings belong to the royal house of Karangasem. One is Puri Gede, the royal palace and its courtyard. The other is Taman Ujung, the water palace on the coast that I Gusti Bagus Jelantik, the last king of Karangasem, began in 1909 and completed in 1921. Ujung was almost entirely destroyed by the eruption of Mount Agung in 1963 and by an earthquake in 1975, and was restored between 1998 and 2001. A wedding away from the resort carries a supplementary charge.
Dinner in the Coconut Grove
From the lawn the wedding moves into the Coconut Grove, which the larger packages reserve from seven until eleven for the reception: an hour of canapés, a four hour drinks package and a five course dinner under the trees. The resort caters every wedding dinner itself, and outside food comes in only with its agreement. A couple marrying on their own can take their candlelit dinner, cooked to a menu from the executive chef and served by a private butler, in a cabana or in the grove.
Seasalt, the resort’s restaurant, occupies a traditional Balinese pavilion looking out to the ocean and takes its name from a neighbouring organic salt farm. The kitchen cooks Indonesian and Balinese dishes alongside Western ones, and its signature is the Megibung, the East Balinese custom of sharing food with family and friends at village festivals and ceremonies. For a wedding party gathering the night before, it is the meal to ask about. The Ocean Bar, an open air lounge right beside the water, serves cocktails and light bites from midday into the night.
Planning around the rains
Bali is generally dry from April to October and wet from November to March, though rain falls in the dry season and the wet season has many dry days, so the resort makes a wet weather plan compulsory. For up to 80 guests the ceremony moves into Seasalt and dinner into the main lobby. A larger wedding needs a marquee, at an extra charge and confirmed at least a month ahead. Couples can also follow a Balinese custom and engage a rain stopper: a Hindu priest who prays for the rain to be held off or sent elsewhere, making small offerings and burning incense and a plate of fire whose smoke, by tradition, drives the clouds away. The resort arranges one by the day and takes no responsibility for the weather.
Taking the whole resort
For a destination wedding the buyout is the form that makes most sense of the place. For two days the resort belongs to the wedding: every room and suite for two nights, accommodation for about 110 guests with breakfast, the ceremony and its decoration, a drinks and canapé package and a five course dinner under the stars. It starts from IDR 525,000,000, with tax and service added. The smallest package, Simply for Two, starts from IDR 38,400,000 per couple, also with tax and service added.
The couple’s room is a Seaside Suite. There are two, both in the building nearest the ocean, with wraparound balconies, and at 114 square metres each is more than three times the size of a standard room. Mornings can begin at Surya, a yoga shala ten metres square that looks over the ocean towards the sunrise, or at Spa Alila, whose treatments take place in three open air bales in a grove of pandan, two of them facing the sea. The resort lends bicycles and runs a shuttle, on its own timetable, to Tenganan and to Candidasa.
Palaces, weavers and the mountain
The days either side of the wedding belong to East Bali. Tenganan, close to the resort, is a village of the Bali Aga, who trace their descent to the island’s pre-Majapahit kingdom of Bedahulu, and one of only three places in the world where a double ikat cloth is woven; here it is called geringsing and is used in rites of passage. Along the coast are Goa Lawah, the sacred bat cave temple, and the salt fields of Kusamba. Inland are Lempuyang Temple, with the gateway known as the Gates of Heaven, and Besakih, a complex of more than twenty temples on the slopes of Agung. The resort’s own outings include a cooking class that starts with picking ingredients in the garden and ends at a wood fire, and a cycle ride from the mountain village of Selat through rice fields and snake fruit farms to lunch on the beach.
Ngurah Rai International Airport is about 90 minutes away by road, along the Professor Ida Bagus Mantra road, and the resort arranges airport transfers. For more of the island, see weddings in East Bali, our Edit on its sister resort Alila Ubud, our guide to marrying in Bali and the Indonesia Wedding Atlas.
A blessing or a marriage
Alila Manggis is a resort small enough to be taken whole, with its ceremonies held under the trees its architect was told to keep and a royal water palace further along the coast. The decision to settle first is a legal one. Under Indonesia’s Marriage Law a marriage is valid when it is carried out according to the religion of both partners and recorded, and the resort’s packages are built around a commitment ceremony led by a celebrant. The resort can help arrange a legal wedding in a Buddhist, Protestant Christian or Muslim ceremony, while a Catholic marriage must now take place in church. Couples should decide whether the day on the lawn is to be their legal marriage or a celebration of one made at home, then read the Alila Manggis profile and check your date.
