The Wedding

A wedding in India is a very elaborate, several day affair.  An engagement ceremony is several days before the wedding–and Lilly’s was the night we arrived in India.  Generally outdoor venues are rented and decorated with flowers and lights and fabric and a stage is constructed.  Lilly and Vinit spent the evening greeting guests on the stage, until the deejay wanted them to be announced.  He kept asking the workers to pass out the ‘comfortees’ and after about 5 minutes of him repeating ‘please pass out the comfortees–quickly!’ the workers came around with buckets of colorful little balls.  I assumed they were sweets to be enjoyed and so popped one in my mouth until the combination of the look on Peter’s face and the styro-foamy taste caused me to spit it back out.  We now know it was meant as confetti!  So I hoped no one around me saw me attempt to eat it and threw my handful on the happy couple as they walked by.  I still think he was saying ‘comfortees’, but Peter thinks he was saying confetti–either way, they aren’t tasty!

The engagement stage

The food line at the engagement

The couple who picked us up from the airport at the engagement

A handful of comfortees

The tooth dent:)

Shortly after the confetti mishap, the deejay invited everyone to form a train behind the couple and parade around, which we were compelled to do:)  Then he had two couples join up, making a group of four, which would then parade around in the same way, except Peter and I were last and there was no one to join us, so it was all groups of four and then the American couple by themselves at the end:)  When they joined to groups of eight and there was still no one to join us, we decided to sit down!

We stayed until about 2 a.m. with the family and then crashed for the night.  The next day we went shopping with Lilly and her friend Karuna–Lilly had a few last minute jewelry items to buy and I got bangles.   We enjoyed seeing the behind the scenes preparations of a bride and also got to see lots of jewelry and fabric shops that we probably would not have seen on our own.  It was fun to get to know Lilly a bit and she was great to include us on her errands!

That night there was a mahendi party at Lilly’s–mahendi (or mehndi as wikipedia spells it:) is a temporary skin decoration with henna.  The henna is applied through a tube, much like frosting on cookies, directly to the skin and is left there to dry.  It eventually flakes off and if no water is applied to the hands for several hours after, the mehndi will get darker and darker overnight.  Lilly had her college friends over, somewhat like a bachelorette party, and they all got their hands decorated with the henna.  The girls who put it on do everything freestyle.  Lilly’s covered her hands up to her elbows and her feet and ankles.

 

The next day Siju and Jenny arrived and had some more wedding errands to run.  Peter bought some pants to go with the kurta top he was wearing–unlike any other pants he owns, they are somewhat like leggings:)  We went with Siju and his brother Biju and found Peter’s pants but passed on buying the aladdin like shoes that some of the guys wore.  That night 5 women from Vinit’s family came to Lilly’s house and covered her in a tumeric like paste.  Once she was covered in it, she showered, changed and there were a few more Hindu rituals the family performed and then they enjoyed sweets together.  Lilly’s family is Catholic and Vinit’s family is Hindu, so many of the Hindu rituals were new to Lilly’s family as well, so we didn’t always know what was happening or why.

 

The next day Lilly left the house at 4:30 a.m. to get her hair and make-up done.  Peter and I were up by 5:30 and ready to go at Siju’s house shortly after 6, although we didn’t leave until close to 8, even though Vinit’s family had said we should arrive at the wedding location between 7-8:)  We arrived close to 9 and no one from Vinit’s family had come yet, so Lilly had lots of pictures taken.  When Vinit did arrive, the ceremony began and lasted many many hours!  At the beginning the bride and groom stand on opposite sides of a white sheet, unable to see each other.  When the sheet is lowered, the groom’s family lifts him on their shoulders and the bride’s family does the same.  Lilly was supposed to put a flower necklace around Vinit’s neck, but his job is to make it hard for her.  It was very funny to watch Lilly’s brothers try to get her high enough to reach Vinit, which she eventually did.

Although the ceremony is very long and has lots of rituals, the overall feel of the morning was very informal–people are walking around, talking on cell phones, eating food, visiting with people and the ceremony is sort of happening in the background. 

Sometime in the morning, turbans were put on all the men–including Peter!  Lengths of fabric were quickly and expertly wrapped around each man’s head by a young boy hired for the task.  Peter’s had to be redone since his first one was a bit cockeyed, but between the turban and the kurta, his Indian wedding look was complete!

 

There is a tradition where the bride’s friends steal the groom’s shoes–Vinit had to remove his shoes before stepping on to the wedding platform and can’t step off until he is wearing the same shoes he arrived in.  So for about 20 minutes there was some very funny bargaining back and forth for his shoes.  The friends started asking for 10,000 rupees and settled for about 1500, which is $30–not bad!

The ceremony ended with a great meal–a mix of Goan/Maharastrian food (Vinit’s family is from the state of Goa but now lives in Mahrasthra, the state Bombay is in), which included a cold coconut soup with pieces of custard apple–very tasty!

We then went home to rest for a bit before the reception.  We all changed our attire and I wore a sari with the help of Siju’s sister-in-law, as I can’t drape it myself.  A sari is the perfect wedding attire for a pregnant woman as it can be any size!  The reception started at 6:30, so we decided we’d leave about then, since most people are late, but we didn’t end up arriving until almost 9 and Lilly was wondering where her family was!  The evening reception was very elaborate–with all fresh flower decorations and 6 or 7 different food stations.  We enjoyed pani poori, which is a spicy soup like mix that is poured into a circle pastry of sorts and is immediately popped into your mouth to be eaten in one bite.  This was Peter’s favorite food of the evening and all together he had 12!  Topped only by the guy who camped out at the pani poori station the whole evening:)

 

The clothing and jewelry of Indian women is so beautiful and bright and colorful–I loved seeing all the different saris and several women said they were very happy to see me in a sari!  The pictures won’t quite do justice, but you can catch a glimpse!  Also, we learned that this was the last day Hindus could get married until sometime in May as they choose the wedding date based on the stars and when is most ‘auspicious’, so there were 22,000 weddings in Bombay that day!