The dark-haired bride wore a white wedding dress with puffedout sleeves and the groom a grey suit with pink tie, and they sat holding hands on a carpeted dais as a singer crooned I can't stop lovin' you.
The scene was a wedding party in Becora, a suburb of Dili, on Saturday evening, just one of the many such ceremonies which have been taking place since violence in the area came to an end.
For the hundred or so East Timorese guests and the few journalists and other foreigners privileged to be invited, the marriage reception for Aiqu and Selia was the first occasion of pure joy in the devastated East Timor capital since the terror of September.
The couple had worked for the UN Mission in East Timor, and aid workers helped provide canvas to rig up a large marquee and supply food for a sumptuous wedding banquet with a roast suckling pig as its centrepiece.
Until the Indonesian army and the pro-Jakarta militias left the area last month, Becora was a dangerous place. The Financial Times journalist, Sander Thoenes, was murdered nearby by Indonesian soldiers on September 21st.
On Saturday night dozens of local residents who had returned to fix up their fire-destroyed homes squatted happily in rows on the dark road outside, enjoying the music in the night air heavy with the scent of frangipani and bougainvillea.
I saw some of the same faces at 6.00 a.m. Mass in the grounds of Bishop Carlos Belo's wrecked house yesterday morning, but this time they were suffused with sorrow, as some of them were clearly grieving for lost and missing relatives.
Arriving for the second time in the little seaside capital since the Australian-led international force (Interfet) landed on September 20th I found the destruction if anything more shocking. Even with Interfet on the ground, Indonesian soldiers continued to burn villas and houses they occupied.
One of these was the old Portuguese garrison on the seafront, dating from 1627, with massive thick walls and heavy shuttered windows.
It is now a blackened ruin, though two ornamental 25-pounder artillery pieces still stand incongruously on rubber tyres at the entrance.
Already Dili has become internationalised. In the central streets, which the military refer to as the "grid", Australian army half-tracks, Italian jeeps and Japanese ambulances vie for right of way with Brazilian police cars, Red Cross trucks and UN land cruisers.
Up to 20 different NGOs from all over the globe have occupied a teacher training college and other centres.
Administration modules are being imported from Australia - the sooner the better - so that the undamaged schools now housing international organisations can be used again by East Timor children.
Some 15 armies have set up local headquarters in the few government buildings still standing. The small Irish army contingent in Dili shares a structure with Canadians and Norwegians where smoke-blackened rafters are visible through the ceiling.
With no nightlife, viewing old films is as much as soldiers can expect for entertainment. In the US special services HQ they have been watching Diehard 3, while the British army has Zulu. The Americans are billeted opposite the town's only bordello, a tiny building (which survived) recognisable from the bus seats outside where the women sit in the hot sunshine. It is strictly off limits but an Australian soldier has been sent home for obtaining sex for just A$2 (about £1).
Australian money is accepted now by taxi drivers and market vendors, and in the first little street cafe, called "Speed", though the Indonesian rupiah still remains the regular currency. The Portuguese hope to change that.
In the newly-established Portuguese mission, which has 75 personnel and boasts a Lisbon-registered fleet of four fire trucks and four ambulances, the director of operations, Manuel Vellos, told me that the escudo will be reintroduced to the former Portuguese colony in the coming weeks with the establishment of a branch of the Banco Nacional Ultramarino, offering the intriguing prospect of a little bit of the Asia-Pacific region becoming part of the euro zone.
There is also debate about what the official language will be. English is the lingua franca of the new international occupation and is gaining ground daily. Portuguese is however the favoured tongue of the Falintil resistance and educated East Timorese, and everyone uses some Portuguese words like obrigado (thank you).
From what the best man at the wedding reception said in his address, there are more immediate and pressing problems for East Timor than money and language. "Please give the bride and groom support in a difficult moment in their lives," he asked the guests "Many lives have been lost. Remember what Bishop Basilio [Nasciamento] has said, that it is the responsibility of couples to rebuild."
No one in the marquee on Saturday night could escape the feeling that the marriage of Aiqu and Selia symbolised such a hope for the future, when a new generation of East Timorese will be born in a battered country which for the first time in over three centuries, apart from a brief period in 1975, is occupied by outsiders not bent on repression but determined to help them build a new and independent country.