The Hindu wedding experience (quite an experience indeed)

This is the bride and groom immediately after the marriage was official. Certainly these are smiles of happiness, but there’s also probably a bit of relief involved, especially for the bride, Jeetal. Hindu weddings are a long, ritualistic affair with hours of various religious and cultural proceedings before and after the actual wedding ceremony, and that’s just on the wedding day itself. There were actually several days of festivities leading up to the wedding day, and then a huge party (apparently the only kind of party Indians have) the next night.

The night of our arrival, jetlagged but ready to rumble, we attended the Raas Garba, a traditional cultural and dance celebration. Soon we were undertaking what would become our routine for the: eat entirely too much Indian food, make lots of new friends (struggling at every turn to remember all the names), stay up too late and make fools of ourselves on the dance floor. Well, the overeating and terrible dancing can mainly be pinned on me, Rhonda being both more refined and graceful than I.

Here are Jeetal and the groom, Amit, performing one of the ceremonies that night. For all the women in the family, especially Jeetal, the saris (dresses) got progressively more beautiful and intricately adorned by the day.

Here’s Rhonda and Nancy, another friend of Jeetal’s from Oregon. For a few days, I was convinced we were the only 3 white people to be found in all of Gujarat (the state in Western India where the families are from). Americans coming to India mainly head straight for bigger cities and tourist attractions, so we attracted quite a bit of attention this week. While Rhonda and Jeetal spent one afternoon at the spa, Nancy and I actually had a small group of schoolgirls stop us and ask if they could take pictures of us and them together with their cellphones. Undoubtedly we are on their Facebook pages now…

For what wouldn’t be the last time of the week, we marveled at the partying stamina of our hosts and turned in at a decent hour.

The next evening’s activities centered around the Mehndi celebration (although plenty of dancing, drinking, and staying out past bedtimes went on as well). This event is more fun than ceremonial, and involves the bride and her female family and friends getting elaborate mehndi (henna tattoos that can last several weeks if properly cared for). Rhonda had looked forward to this for weeks before the trip.

Here’s the start of the mehndi on one of Rhonda’s arms. The henna is a thick paste that you leave in place until it dries/flakes off on its own.

Jeetal’s mehndi was extremely elaborate. The poor thing had to sit there for what seemed like forever letting it dry while everyone came up to admire it.

The mehndi dyes white skin a bright orange (on the Indians’ skin, it was more of a burt amber shade).

After a relatively calm day (this is when Rhonda and Jeetal went to the spa) came the day that Jeetal warned us about: “Guys, this is gonna be a really long day.” Loads of ceremonial stuff happening, during which the folks not directly involved were allowed to either watch or just relax and wait to be told something was about to happen.

The most important event of this day was the Vidhi ceremony, in which the bride’s family prays to various gods to keep evil spirits away. This one’s from the Vidhi ceremony.

Here we are during a break in the action. Rhonda got lots of compliments on her traditional attire all week.

That evening, Rhonda and Nancy got to participate in a ceremony that was quite the spectacle. It started out as a slow march down the streets to a house maybe 1/8 of a mile away, accompanied by the soothing sounds of our very own marching band. Traffic in our lane was pretty much forced to stop and wait, which we were assured was quite normal. The point of the ceremony (the name of which I never caught) is for the ladies in the families to go retrieve a set of pots, put them on their heads, and return back home with them. If I recall correctly, the ceremony symbolizes a pooling of resources from the 2 families. A dropped pot is bad luck, so try not to let the marching band, flashing cameras, fireworks (!) and your tired arms distract you.

Luckily Rhonda and Nancy got to carry ‘training size’ pots.

The guys stopped the procession several times to tease the women and dance (these folks really enjoy music and dance: traditional, spontaneous, and sometimes both at once). The big bus isn't part of the show; just squeezing by, and I do mean squeezing.

Another long night of partying followed. I remain impressed with the stamina of these folks. With family members not just in India, but in the US, Canada, London and Africa, these weddings are also something akin to a weeklong family reunion, and are celebrated accordingly. This certainly was an exciting change of pace from the type of wedding we’re accustomed to.

Next came the actual wedding day, which as I mentioned had a variety of ceremonies. When refreshments and a full buffet is served during the wedding, you know you’re in for another long day.

The ladies just before heading to the wedding venue (check out the bling on Jeetal).

Almost married at this point.

Instead of just showing up to the scheduled events, we were pretty much adopted family members for the week, hanging out at Jeetal’s family house for meals and whatnot. Very nice, warm folks who never grew tired of answering endless questions, making sure we were enjoying ourselves, helping the ladies shop for clothes, etc. It was truly special to experience a Hindu wedding week this way.

Here are some more pictures from the wedding week. (Click View Album, then in the next screen click Play Slideshow.)