I’ve mentioned previously that Aditya and I recently had our Hindu wedding ceremony in India, and I’ve been meaning to write a post or two (or a hundred) about my experiences in India. And then a reader mentioned that she liked the pictures of the wedding that are sprinkled around the GoriGirl site, and would be interested in seeing more of them. So I thought I’d combine these two ideas and post a couple of pictures each day, working through the story chronologically. We’ll start off with our arrival in Calcutta (also known as Kolkata – but I’ll go with my inlaw’s usage), where the wedding took place.
Getting in the night before the wedding
We arrived in Calcutta the night before the wedding, on December 24th. Yes, the night before. I’m not in the photo above because, by that point, I think I’d fallen to the ground as a puddle of exhausted jetlagged organic matter.
We’d flown into Bombay the night of the 23rd (after exactly 22 hours of travel) to meet Aditya’s very pregnant sister, Didi. It was my first meeting with her; due to said pregnant state she wasn’t going to be at the wedding, so we had scheduled this stopover in Bombay to say a quick hello. The 18 or so hours we spent in Bombay mostly consisted of me trying to fall asleep during India’s night with little success, then nodding off the next day during, let’s see, breakfast, lunch, a brief car tour of Bombay, and dinner.
When we finally arrived in Calcutta I was greeted by lovely, warm weather and Bengalis galore in skullcaps (called monkey caps by the locals) and thick sweaters & coats. Winter in Calcutta seems cold only to those who deal with the city’s summer heat – to the rest of us it’s t-shirt & shorts weather. After a drive through mostly-deserted streets (it was late, but Indian cities never completely close down), we arrived in Aditya’s family’s home in Calcutta. The house was made for the extended family, but Maa and Baba have a wing of their own in it.
In the picture above you can see the flowers decking out the entrance from the street to the interior courtyard. The flowers, besides being very beautiful, announce to all the neighbors that a marriage is taking place in the family. Every time I emerged onto the street from the house everyone nearby would congregate to look at the bride. This wasn’t because I was white – new brides are considered very lucky generally in India, and everyone wants a look – but I’m sure being white added to my entertainment value.
There were also flowers all over the house in general, and about a million in the bedroom Aditya and I were sharing. Traditionally, of course, I wouldn’t go to my husband’s family’s house until after the marriage, but since we’d been legally married for over a year at the time, and I didn’t have any place else to crash, the bridal suite it was.
Through the courtyard and on to bed!
Here’s a picture of the indoor courtyard of the family house, before we entered the wing that Aditya’s parents occupy. Aditya’s older brother, Dada (who’d been in India for some weeks at that time), is helping out his poor, tired-out little brother with the luggage. Earlier that day my mother and uncle had stopped by the house to hang out with Baba and Maa – like Dada, Mom and Uncle Mark had already been in India for a couple of weeks. Uncle Mark tried his hand at cricket in the courtyard, and promptly broke a window.
Stop by tomorrow for pictures of the morning of the wedding! It’ll get more exciting, I promise. 
The next part of this series can be found here.
Related posts:
April 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
hmmmm,at some point if you’re comfortable I’m going to want to hear more about this “legally married for over a year…”part! I don’t want to be tooooo nosy though
(maybe I am too nosy…I just can’t get enough of other’s experiences on this!)
Thanks for sharing! Can’t wait for more wedding pics!
April 16th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Can’t wait to see more wedding pics, GG! M and I are in the midst of planning our Hindu wedding right now so this is of big interest to me!
April 16th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Um, you flew into INDIA the NIGHT BEFORE your wedding?! And, get all crazy/psycho about the planning?! My god, you are my hero. I can even see a laid-back chick as myself getting potentially uptight about a ceremony such as that (heh hem as we’ve witnessed), but you rolled. Not everyone can roll like that…that’s pretty extraordinary!
April 16th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
*didn’t* *didn’t* get all crazy/psycho about the wedding I meant..
April 16th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Technically, we flew into India TWO nights before the wedding. We spent a day in Bombay visiting my sister’s family & my best friend before flying out to Calcutta…
Thankfully, we didn’t have to worry much about the planning at all… my family [parents + siblings + spouses + cousins + spouses] took care of the whole thing!
We were just in for the party!
April 16th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I mean…that is truly amazing!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
@ Pale_Desi – no worries, I don’t think you’re being nosy. Basically, Aditya and I were married in a civil ceremony in California about a year before we had our Hindu marriage ceremony. We had a civil ceremony because I’m not Christian (if anything, at this point I’m Hindu), so I didn’t want to be married in a church, and I didn’t want a big event (knew I’d get enough of that in India). Oh, and it helped with taxes and with Aditya’s visa paperwork, but that only affected timing, not the actual event.
@ CaliforniaTransplant – sounds cool! Let me know how things are shaping up.
@ NeoKalypso – as Aditya points out, we didn’t have to plan anything, so there was nothing to worry about. I was just on for the ride – and it was great! And while we might have flown into India two days before, I was still dead tired from jetlag the day of the event.
May 30th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Hi Gori Girl,
Your narrative is simply fantastic. I had never realized that the wedding was such a funny affair – actually I think all marriages have their fun part. Keep writing.
Cheers
(edited to remove identifying names
)
November 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I am getting opinions on how people usually meet in interracial weddings. (since iam in one)
How and where did you guys meet? how long did it take to build a relation? after how long since you guys met did you get engaged/married
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:29 pm
interesting article
October 4th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Great post!
My mom and I flew to Karachi about a week before my ‘rukhsati’, or the red-dress day in my Pakistani wedding. I was coming from Oman where I worked, so no jet-lag. But lucky me I got to participate in my pre-wedding activities, which are so much fun in desi weddings. It was amazing.
Your in-laws sound great. Did you have any say so in picking out your dress/jewellery? How did you go about having the desi style bridal make-up?
January 23rd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Hii Gorigirl, I just came across your blog..a nice one!! I enjoyed reading your narrative, great post..Its a little funny reading the reverse of what I went through as an Indian expat in netherlands in the initial months..I have my own expat blog too!!
It was quite interesting reading this part, now moving on to the next one..