A woman whose fiance was killed in the Lion Air plane crash has posed for photo portraits in her wedding dress, saying it is what her partner would have wanted.
Her bridegroom, Rio Nanda Pratama, was one of the 189 passengers who died when Lion Air flight JT610 crashed shortly after take-off from Jakarta on 29 October.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Pratama, a doctor, was returning to the couple’s home city of Pangkalpinang from a medical conference in Jakarta when the plane crashed into the sea, killing all on board.
The pair met as school students and had been together for 13 years before setting 11 November as the date of their nuptials, The Jakarta Post reports.
Before leaving for the conference, Pratama had joked with Syari that if he was delayed and missed the wedding, she should dress up in her gown and send him a photograph.
Syari, who works in the finance department of the hospital where Pratama was employed as a doctor, said she decided to honour the light-hearted comment as a tribute to her fiance, The Straits Times reports.
“There is sadness that I cannot describe, but I have to smile for you,” the 26-year-old wrote in the caption of a photo from the shoot shared on Instagram. “I shall not mourn. I have to stay strong like you always told me.”
As well as the photos of Syari in her wedding dress, other images include close-up of her wedding ring and a group picture featuring one of Pratama’s sisters.
“Even though you were not next to me yesterday your loyal sister accompanied me to carry out your last most beautiful request,” she wrote, adding: “Know that our love for you will not diminish at all, we love you forever.”
The unusual wedding portraits have gone viral in Indonesia, which is reeling from its deadliest aviation disaster since 1997.
Indonesian authorities ended their recovery operation at the Java Sea crash site on Saturday. Almost 200 human remains have been found, with 77 victims’ bodies identified so far.
-
Grok in the crosshairs as EU launches deepfake porn probeIN THE SPOTLIGHT The European Union has officially begun investigating Elon Musk’s proprietary AI, as regulators zero in on Grok’s porn problem and its impact continent-wide
-
‘But being a “hot” country does not make you a good country’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Why have homicide rates reportedly plummeted in the last year?Today’s Big Question There could be more to the story than politics
-
Israel retrieves final hostage’s body from GazaSpeed Read The 24-year-old police officer was killed during the initial Hamas attack
-
China’s Xi targets top general in growing purgeSpeed Read Zhang Youxia is being investigated over ‘grave violations’ of the law
-
Panama and Canada are negotiating over a crucial copper mineIn the Spotlight Panama is set to make a final decision on the mine this summer
-
Why Greenland’s natural resources are nearly impossible to mineThe Explainer The country’s natural landscape makes the task extremely difficult
-
Iran cuts internet as protests escalateSpeed Reada Government buildings across the country have been set on fire
-
US nabs ‘shadow’ tanker claimed by RussiaSpeed Read The ship was one of two vessels seized by the US military
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
