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span class="caption" style="width: 378px;">A high-ranking court servant in Kraton Ngayogyakarta plays the Kyai Guntur Madu gamelan (traditional musical ensemble) in Pogungan Kidul, Masjid Gedhe Kauman, Yogyakarta, in a February file photo. Antara/Wahyu Putro) Next Tuesday the Yogyakarta Palace will become the focus for a royal celebration.

On that day Yogyakarta Sultan Hamengkubuwono X and his wife, Gusti Kanjeng Ratu (GKR) Hemas, will celebrate the wedding of their youngest daughter, GKR Bendara, 25, to Kanjeng Pangeran Haryo Yudanegara, 30.

The royal wedding is expected to become a prominent cultural event attracting the attention of many people, especially Yogyakartans. This will be one of the few occasions to witness a full Javanese traditional ceremonial procession.

At least 1,500 guests will attend the wedding ceremony with the initial procession scheduled to start on Sunday and the ceremonials continuing until Wednesday. Various preparations are under way and the Yogyakarta Palace itself has been spruced up for the big event. The wedding vows will be held at the Panepen mosque in the palace compound.

There will be great interest in the ceremony around the country. Although the public will not be able to see the traditional procession in the palace, they will be able to see the newly-wed couple escorted in the Kyai Jong Wiyat (flying boat) carriage by palace guards along the famous Malioboro thoroughfare.

The carriage, which will be fully open so that the public will be able to see the happy couple, was made in 1880 for use by Sultan Hamengkubuwono VII.

The great popular interest in the event can be gauged by the increased number of hotel bookings in areas close to the palace.

“Nearly all hotels in the ring 1 area, mainly around the Malioboro thoroughfare have been fully booked,” secretary of the Yogyakarta chapter of the Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association Deddy Pranowo Eryono told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

According to Deddy, there are seven star-rated hotels and over 120 non-star hotels in the city.

In addition to the wedding ceremony, Deddy said that there would be another event in the city — the Jogja Java Carnival on Oct. 22. “Until Oct. 23, the hotels will be full,” he said.

At the Inna Garuda Hotel, which is located at the end of Malioboro street, for example, only 40 out of its 224 rooms remained unbooked, according to Zulfikar of the hotel’s reservation section. “There has been an increase in the occupancy rate of 15 percent so far,” Zulfikar said, adding that those booking hotel accommodation were mainly government officials invited by the sultan.

A similar situation prevails at the Ibis Hotel Malioboro. Its hotel receptionist, Martin, said that there had been an 11 to 15 percent increase in occupancy. “All of the guests are from other cities,” he said.