Indian Wedding Story: Part Four
This is Part Four of a continuing series on my Indian wedding adventure. If you’re new to Gori Girl, try checking out Part One, where the story starts.
When I last left off on the story of our wedding in India (see part three), I had just arrived. Here’s the picture, in case anyone forgot:
The lovely lady trailing behind me is a friend of the family (and Aditya’s childhood math tutor), who’d been helping me with all the preparations - it was like she was an older aunt of mine for the day. There were flowers ALL OVER the place as I arrived - from where the car dropped me off to the second floor hall where the ceremony would be, I was surrounded by sheets of flowers, while walking under flower arches (spelling Aditya’s and my names in flowers) and over a red carpet, just like you see at movie premiers. Of course, the only person who took pictures of this wonder was my uncle, who, of course, has not yet gotten around to sending me his photos.
Guests
After I climbed the stairs I was presented with the hall itself, and everyone decked out to the nines:
This is one of Aditya’s cousins and his wife and daughter. Isn’t she adorable? This couple were always around helping out during the wedding planning, wedding ceremony, and reception. You’ll notice that most (but not all) of the men are in Western suits, not traditional Indian outfits, altho either are acceptable for formal wear. Women almost always wear saris. In fact, here’s a picture of my mom in one she borrowed:
When Maa offered that sari for me to take home after the wedding, I did a little happy dance inside. Man, that jewel-toned turquoise is gorgeous!
Although it wasn’t too late in the evening (maybe seven or eight?), some of the smaller kids were becoming a bit tired. Here’s Bappada in another turquoise outfit with his slightly sleepy son:
This kid (let’s call him R, for red) was an absolute hoot - so friendly & talkative - and he had a decent ability in English, although he didn’t always remember that I didn’t speak Hindi or Bengali. Later that night, while we were driving home, R started babbling out complete nonsense - things he’d overheard adults saying during the day. He was so tired! Just a random, running stream of English/Bengali/Hindi phrases, over and over again.
I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with Indian weddings, so I’ll be discussing some of the very basics. One thing that confuses most Westerners is how the ceremony isn’t absolutely the center of attention for all guests at all times. Everyone is serious about the wedding, but there typically isn’t a “formal” vibe during them. People get up, grab food, chat to each other in quiet voices, children ask questions and move around, and so forth. I guess the best way to describe it as a celebration of family with the bride and groom as the star attractions, rather than a celebration of the bride and groom, period. Personally, I liked the philosophy - less stress because there wasn’t a feeling of “it’s the big day and everything has to be perfectly perfect because everyone is here just to see you.” Instead, everyone is there to celebrate the newly expanded family.
Anyways, the less formal feeling leads scenes like this:
These two boys are cousins, but don’t get to see each other often. The boy in yellow, Y, is about six months older than R. Y took his “older cousin” position very seriously, and wanted to have R sit down on his lap, or at least on the couch next to him. R wasn’t having any of it. The tussle ended with R victorious:
Can you tell I absolutely adored these kids? Well, I love pretty much all kids - as long as I can return them at the end of the day. That’s the great thing about being an aunt - spoil them, then give them back to their parents. We’ve got five little munchkins (one EXTREMELY small - he was born just a few days ago) running around in the immediate family on both sides, and one more expected in the fall.
Aditya
There are more pictures of the guests up at my flickr page, but I suppose you’ll are wondering what happened to the bride and groom? Well, Aditya had arrived at the hall first, and was chilling with his cousin:
The maroon color of his outfit (and mine too!) is Maa’s favorite color, apparently, and since she picked the outfits… Traditionally, I think the groom wears white. That factoid has always struck me as a bit odd, given that white is the color of mourning in Hinduism. Of course, Western grooms wear black suits or tuxes, which is the West’s mourning color - so perhaps this is just a cross-cultural, um, acknowledgment of men’s view of matrimony? Anyways, Aditya was grinning too much for me to suspect he was getting cold feet.
Some of you who are more familiar with Indian weddings might be wondering why Aditya hadn’t shown up on the traditional horse or elephant, or why I wasn’t carried in by my brothers or whatever. Well, Aditya and I aren’t big on massive events, and neither one of us were interested in the days-long series of ceremonies you see in a traditional Bengali wedding. Instead, we wanted something short and sweet, while still celebrating Adiya’s culture and religion.
We opted for an Arya Samaj wedding, which is sort of back-to-the-Vedic-basics wedding. The Arya Samaj reformation movement wedding ceremony incorporates the fundamentals of Hindu beliefs, but in a pan-India manner - no regional or ethnic quirks. The ceremony is much shorter than a traditional Hindu wedding, and has no wildly elaborate (again, compared to the Hindu norm) rituals. Furthermore, the priests believe very strongly that the participants should understand exactly what they’re doing, and why. Most Hindu religious events are conducted in the ancient language of Sanskrit, which very few Indians actually understand (it’s as dead as Latin). Aditya has studied Sanskrit for eight years, but Maa and Baba searched out an Arya Samaj priest who was fluent in English for me. During the wedding, Aditya and I recited our vows in Sanskrit, but the priest first translated everything for me (and most of the guests).
After my arrival
Rather than making a big arrival (dum dum dee dum), and starting the ceremony off with a bang, we eased into things a bit by first greeting guests, which is typical for Bengali weddings. Aditya and I sat on our awesome thrones while guests came up to say hello. I also managed to catch a few minutes to tell Aditya that he cleans up well:
I look a little taller than Aditya here, but that’s because my throne was set a few inches higher, and he slouches.
Aditya’s sister, who was 8.5 months pregnant at the time, wasn’t able to travel to Calcutta for the wedding. Instead she called to wish us both well. I love the juxtaposition of a cell phone with traditional Indian attire in this photo:
Can I take a moment to sigh over the sari, jewelry, and accessories that made up my bridal outfit (I actually just ran upstairs to look at it again!)? The sari was so, so gorgeous - a deep red silk, with dark maroon detailing, and gold thread embroidery. It’s also a color that doesn’t scream bridal sari so I’ll be wearing it again next chance I get. The jewelry was given to me by Maa, and was equally fabulous. And by fabulous, I mean “this looks like something out of a movie or museum” amazing. I also haven’t had much chance to wear it again (clearly, Aditya and I need to go to more formal events where you can wear rubies and diamonds and stuff) - but I get it out every now and then just to look at. Maybe with the new job I’ll be able to wear a piece or two to work - they’re a little less overpowering when not worn as a whole. And then there’s the golden veil that CaliforniaTransplant envied (hope your wedding planning is going well!) - while I found it a little too, um, shiny when I first saw it, the veil ended up fitting into the whole outfit very well. It was pinned into my hair along with those three roses and the tikka (thing on forehead) that matched the sari perfectly. Ah… playing princess for an evening was so much more fun than I expected it to be. Aditya was looking like the proper prince, too, but boy clothes aren’t as much fun to discuss. Less bling, donchaknow?
Let’s get this party rolling
While Aditya and I were greeting guests - and in my case, quietly freaking the heck out from the otherworldly-ness of it all - the priests were finishing up setting things up at the mandap. The wedding ceremony takes place at the mandap which is an area, often a raised platform, with four pillars and a canopy. Ours had four pillars of flowers curving in to meet together in the middle. From left to right, here’s Bhabhi (sister-in-law), Dada (brother) and two family friends in front of it, pre-wedding:
I really like this picture, especially, the lighting! Behind them, the younger priest was in charge of the fire pit:
The young man was a full Arya Samaji priest, but still in training. Their outfits were pretty neat - just as colorful as the rest of Hindu weddings. He took care of the fire during the ceremony, and passed out the tools and other things when needed. I like how he arranged flower petals around the fire pit, which was placed right in the center of the mandap.
“Officially” an Arya Samaji priest can only marry two Hindus, since the movement believes that Hinduism - as embodied in the Vedas - is the way to go. Our priest was a bit more relaxed, though, and didn’t require any formal conversion from me, although I do consider myself a Hindu at this point (more on this in another blog post!). I do admire the Arya Samaji movement quite a bit - among other things, they take a firm stance against child marriage, the caste system, and untouchability. I don’t think that most Westerners realize that these things were developed culturally in India, and don’t have an actual basis in the fundamental Hindu texts.
Anyways, back to the wedding. We also had a set of religious musicians for the ceremony. They accompanied the head priest as he chanted the different Sanskrit mantras, which transformed the chanting into almost a song. It was pretty awesome. There was a drummer, a wind instrumentalist, and a musician on a keyboard:
Once everything was ready, and the guests were greeted, Aditya and I walked over to the mandap, taking off our shoes before we stepped onto it. It was time to get going!
Exchanging garlands
This was the first ceremony we did, and marked the start of the whole official wedding ceremony business. The garlands were absolutely beautiful, but I didn’t realize how heavy they were until the head priest handed me one:
The flowers were carnations and roses, I think, and strung on a thick, strong cloth cord. Little did I know that the flowers would seem to get heavier and heavier - and the cord sharper and more razor-like against my neck- as the wedding ceremony continued. Still, it was totally worth it.
You can see how the light’s changing in these next few shots, as we exchange garlands.
I was so nervous! And happy! Ah, weddings… I’ve got a big grin on just remembering this. First I gave him a garland, stretching a bit to get it over his head… then it was Aditya’s turn, with me ducking to facilitate the effort while keeping my hair & veil straight.
And that’s how we started our wedding ceremony. I think I’ll leave off here, for now. Be sure to check out my flickr page for more photos of the wedding.
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Beautiful pictures! *sigh* I love weddings in general, but I really love how colorful Hindu weddings are. It embodies the spirit and feeling of a wedding and a new life together to have all of those bright colors around you. It’s like the springtime — hopeful, beautiful, and lush.
Those pictures are absolutely gorgeous, GG! I also love how colorful Indian weddings are…that’s one of the reasons that I didn’t go with a set color scheme for my upcoming wedding. I just want everything to be as bright and colorful as possible…here’s hoping we can pull it off!
Another one of the best things I’m finding out about Indian weddings is that there’s really very little for the bride and groom to do, since most everything is being taken care of by my fiance’s family. Now, the Western part of our wedding, that’s another story…but at least I don’t have to take care of planning the Indian part as well!
Beautiful pictures! I particularly like the one where you’re about to exchange the garlands. And fun to see what’s similar to and different from my own wedding.
I agree that I really like that it all feels less like a scripted “performance” by the bride and groom, and more like a celebration of the new combined families (as well, of course, the bride and groom - definitely didn’t feel neglected or ignored at any point…!). I also remember how heavy that garland started feeling….
So for Indian weddings is it generally the groom’s family that plans it? Unlike an American wedding where its usually the the bride’s family’s responsibility to pay and plan. What customs are there that says who should plan? Is this different by different indian communities?
Well, I think in my case, my fiance’s family has done most of the planning for the Indian parts of our wedding (we’re having two ceremonies, one Sikh and one Episcopalian, and two receptions, one after the ceremonies which will be predominantly Western, and one a couple of days later for all the folks who can’t come to the wedding) because I wouldn’t know the first thing about what goes into an Indian wedding! I don’t know what the protocols are when both the bride and groom are Indian.
I get the sense, though, just from things I’ve intuited (is that a word?) while planning our wedding, that when it comes to Indian weddings, the bride and groom’s family take a much more equitable share of the planning duties than with most Western weddings. For example, we did our own invitations, and we put both sets of parents’ names on there, but my fiance’s parents had to adjust their thinking a bit. I think (and I could be wrong, because I’m not sure I’m entirely reading them correctly just yet) that his parents initially assumed that TWO separate invitations would be sent out - one going to all the Desi folk that would come from his side, and one going to all the non-Desi folk from my parents’ side. My fiance and I wanted to have things be blended as much as possible, though, so we went with a single invitation, sent to everyone. And his parents, after a bit of negotiation, were ultimately happy with that.
Anyway, that’s my impression/experience of how the whole division of planning thing goes when it comes to an Indian wedding. I’d love to hear what others think! I wonder if there’s some kind of Desi equivalent to Emily Post we could consult… 
Oh my gosh, mocroidh! The wedding invites was an issue with us too. And we are having two seperate sets of invites - one for my side of the family and one for M’s. His invites have the names of his ancestors and all his aunts and uncles on them and there are no RSVP cards (just a phone number) and lost of pictures and no information about hotel accommodations since his family would consider asking people to stay in a hotel to be rude (whereas my family wants to stay in a hotel).
At first, I was kind of upset by this, but when I realized how important it was to M’s parents to honor their family with the invitations, I decided to let it go and accept that we’ll just have two sets. That way I could have mine done the way that made sense to the guests on my side. Also, the invites we have are Indian and quite expensive (but very beautiful!) and his family volunteered to foot the whole bill for them (both mine and his) - which was very generous.
And to disspell the myth that Indian in-laws always want to take over the wedding planning, I’ll just say mine do not want to do that. They’ve helped in many ways, but have been mostly hands off and pretty supportive of our decisions. Originally, they were hoping we’d just go to the Justice of Peace and get it over with. I think they’re still recovering from their daughter’s wedding 5 years ago which they were heavily involved in planning. M and I have been largely on our own in doing the planning although everyone in his family has offered to help and given us guidance. It’s been a lot of work and research and asking questions to plan ceremony (which will be a three hour long Hindu ceremony), but I feel good because I feel I really understand the rituals and traditions that we’ll be doing.
I think the difference between Indian wedding etiquette and Western etiquette is fascinating.
Pale_Desi, I think different Indian communities certainly do have different ways of doing weddings. I’m a Bengali (of Bangladeshi/Muslim heritage) woman, so I can speak a little of how we do things.
If it’s two Bengalis marrying, there are typically two sets of parties, one set hosted by the groom’s side, the other by the bride’s side. Both the bride and the groom get their own “gaye holud” (turmeric ceremonies) in the days before the wedding. The wedding ceremony itself was traditionally something done in private, with just the families in attendance; that takes place in the bride’s home. The biggest party, of course, is the wedding reception, which is hosted by the bride’s side of the family. And then the day after that is the “bou bhat” (bride’s rice), which is often almost as extravagent as the reception, and that’s hosted by the groom’s family.
Now, things in this general formula can get changed up quite a bit. For example, many two-desi couples who get married in the States or elsewhere outside of South Asia may opt to consolidate a lot of these parties (e.g., one gaye holud for both the bride and groom, one joint reception/bou bhat), because let’s face it — Indian weddings are EXPENSIVE. And then, of course, there are couples like me and my husband, where I am the desi and he is not — in our case, it was super important to my parents that we have a traditional Bengali/Muslim wedding, and not that important to his parents what kind of wedding we have, and so my parents took the bulk of the financial responsibility.
I think for most of us on this site, the groom’s family ends up doing a lot of planning because we’ve had or are having Indian ceremonies and, well, they’re the Indian ones so they know what they’re doing.
We had an inviation scuffle, as well. I had written wording for the invitations that I liked that de-emphasized the parents a bit (I have an unusual relationship with my dad - he wasn’t in my life for a long time, and while we’re ok now, I felt weird having his name right up top). My MIL was not ok with that and insisted we change it. I was not ok with changing, and insisted we leave it. We compromised on having two sets of invites that looked identical aside from the wording. One set went to his side, one set went to my side and our mutual friends. That wasn’t our original plan, but that’s what happened.
Nice pictures ! Years ago I remember reading an old copy of a magazine my father used to subscribe to that had a pictoral feature on an Indian American couple living in India in the 1950s. I didn’t realize at the time my life was going to have quite a bit in common with that story. I found a reference to that same story from 1960 (Isn’t Google amazing):
BEautiful pics. U both look good. And u look stunning. I also had an Aryan samaj wedding. I am from India. Got to relive the moments.
Interesting to hear that others have had issues with the invitations! We solved the problem by incorporating both an ek omkar (Sikh religious symbol) and a Celtic cross into the design of the invitations, and by including an insert with information about the 2nd reception that had all R’s (my fiance’s) grandparents, aunts, uncles names. Initially, there was some concern on the part of his parents that the invitations weren’t fancy enough (if you’ve ever seen invites for a typical Indian wedding, you’ll know that they’re just orders of magnitude more fancy than even regular wedding invites), but we solved that problem by having me hand-decorate all the envelopes (quite a chore, but I was happy to do it). That way, my future MIL could call up all her friends and say, “Guess what? M decorated all the invitations HERSELF!” and she got to brag about me, which always makes her happy…
As for the other aspects of planning a joint Indian/Western wedding, I’ve happily let R’s family take the lead in planning the Desi aspects. We’re having a ladies sangeet/mehndi ceremony the night before the big day, and R’s mom and aunt and sisters are doing all the planning for that. And I think his nephews and niece are putting together a little performance for us for the sangeet, which I’m looking forward to (they’re really cute kids)! I’m going to have one of my bridesmaids (the wife of R’s best man) teach a little bhangra lesson for anyone who wants to learn. We’re going to have our DJ for the first reception play a mix of standard wedding fare plus Bollywood songs (I’m planning to dance my butt off to “Deewangi” from the Om Shanti Om soundtrack!) And everything for the second reception is also being taken care of by R’s family - I’m especially looking forward to the yummy Indian buffet we’re going to have. I’m quite jealous of CT’s idea for a mango lassi fountain, though…wish I had thought of that!
thank you so much for putting this website together and for sharing your story… it is an absolute delight to know that someone has also been through the same things Our story in fact is very much similar: dating, break up , same meet the desi parents notes ( even the way I met his mom first!) then the sisters and cousins - I still have yet to meet the dad! we are even getting married on the same date! :))
I will absolutely continue to check for the updates.
P.S. the wedding pictures are gorgeous! you both look fantastic and you are one pretty girl!
but most of all - the way you look at each other so content and so happy..
Thanks again Gori
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Fun pictures and great perspective!
Speaking of short and sweet wedding ceremonies, we were planning a simple Satyanarayan Puja (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyanarayan_Puja) this December in India (we’ve already been married since last August) but an Arya Samaj wedding might be a better alternative - thanks for the idea! Now to find the right priest!