Indian Wedding

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the wedding of Saurabh, someone that I work with here in India. It was held on a Sunday night, on what was supposed to be the most auspicious day of the year to get married. According to news reports, there were 30,000 weddings scheduled for that night. Many major weddings are held at what they call a "farm house" which is really a place set up for parties and events, primarily weddings. This wedding was held at night, lasting into the early morning hours. Just as an American wedding follows a mostly set pattern, Indian weddings have one as well. The groom rides up to the wedding on a decorated white horse, followed by his family who dances along the way up to the entrance to the wedding. There's also a band that highly resembles a marching band. The groom is like king for a day at the wedding.

We went out to greet the wedding party as they arrived, and were made to get in the circle to dance. A couple of times I tried to sneak out but was pulled back in. There was a lot of yelling which I didn't understand, and the loud banging of drums all around, but it was all in the spirit of celebration. Still- a little confusing to me!

Soraya getting down with the crowd as the groom's wedding party arrived.












Here I'm trying Paan, it was something made of a tobacco leaf with lots of weird things wrapped inside it. I had a circle of people around me eagerly watching as I tried it, so I did my best to disguise how strange it tasted to me. To compound the situtaion, you are supposed to stuff the whole thing in your mouth at once, so I had so much I couldn't even swallow it to get the taste out of my mouth. So I finally excused myself with a good-bye wave, found a garbage can and spit out out. But other than the Paan, everything else I enjoyed. I was brought plate after plate of food and desserts- there was an enormous amount of good food at the wedding. I've found the hospitality of the Indian families here to be one of the best things about being here.



Here we're standing with the wedding party up on the stage they were on. There were about 10 going off while we were up there so I don't think there's a single photo where we're all looking in the same direction! I am wearing a traditional Indian kurtya, Soraya has on her sari and Charlotte a salwar. Bryan... well he looks like he always does.

I have to say, Indian weddings are much more fun than American weddings. It occurred to me why Indian weddings may be much more lavish than American weddings- most Indians just get married once in their lifetime, vs. the two or three weddings many Americans have in theirs!