Indian wedding

An Indian wedding is a bit of a free for all. Back when G and I were sending out invitations to our American ceremony, we had a bit of a problem with my mom’s friends all wanting to bring their neighbors and second cousins twice removed. And we had to politely explain that it wasn’t an Evite, that they couldn’t just add whoever they wanted to the RSVP card. I griped about it a lot, but honestly, this was what they were used to. At a typical Indian wedding, EVERYONE comes. And I mean anyone and everyone. The neighbors, the milkman, co-workers’ inlaw’s grandkids. In my cousin’s case, that entailed 750 of their nearest and dearest at its height. The guest list included everyone from my dad’s childhood friends to distant cousins. And actually the final number ended up being fewer than expected – 1000 invitations went out. And that didn’t even involve my entire family. They held a 2nd reception closer to where my family is from to make sure that those who were unable to travel for the wedding were still able to take part in the post wedding festivities.

Earlier this year, G and I had an awesome but relatively minor version of the traditional Indian marriage ceremony. It was cool to see it now in its full glory at my cousin’s wedding. It has been a while since I’ve gotten the chance to attend a relative’s wedding, and this was a first for G. So it was fun for both of us.

At a typical Brahmin South Indian wedding, it takes just moments to tie the knot. And literally, there’s knot tying involved. The guy knots a necklace around the bride’s neck. Of course he gets to walk around completely unhindered, picking up chicks as long as they’ll have him but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, the heart of the ceremony lasts just seconds. And it’s almost always at some inconvenient time. We almost missed it (actually both my cousin's wedding and our own, now that I think of it) for example because we overslept. All of this stuff (like pretty much everything in my family) has to be done at the most “auspicious” moment. And apparently the gods have deemed the most auspicious moments to be the most inconvenient ones. G’s and my ceremony was on a Fri morning at 8 am, very conducive to having guests attend.

So seriously you could blink and miss the main event. But the pre and post wedding festivities can last days. Our own ceremony was scrunched into one day. My cousin had pretty much the same elements but spread out over a couple of days. People come when they please, and talk throughout. The bride and groom go through their own thing, which involves reciting religious chants after the priest and being covered in smoke. The rest of the guests spend the time catching up. They go home in the middle of the day when everyone breaks for a nap, then change and come back in the evening.

And they eat. The food ROCKS. Well, it certainly did at my cousin’s wedding (ours did too but it wasn’t quite the same experience). The caterers set up shop at the wedding hall and served regular meals for 3 days. And I mean regular as in enough for a cow that munches constantly throughout the day. Food is served cafeteria style. People can show up anytime during the meal periods. They take a seat. The caterers set a long line of banana leaves and walk down the line slopping food on the leaf. It defies all logic because you’d think there’s no way this food can be good, but it kicks ass. I got sick one whole day at the start of the wedding and was SO bummed cuz I couldn’t eat (plus I got a lot of shit – no pun intended – from G since he was the white guy and totally fine).


The caterers setting up shop at the wedding hall.

The bride and groom eating their first meal together as a married couple.







The food trough








So anyway, overall, it was a good time. If you missed my Indian wedding, sucks to be you. If you ever get a chance to attend some one else's, I'd take it, cuz the food is THAT good. If you're really lucky, you might get to attend some other type of Indian wedding that involves drinking and dancing. But I don't know how good their food is, so I guess you take the good with the bad. :)