The Indian Wedding Experience

Dear reader, do you remember those fairy tales about weddings; those that you heard of as a child? Those are real! They’re happening nowadays in India. Imagine a beautiful 4 days Hindu ceremony in Gujarat organized by Soumit and Priyanka’s families.

I arrived at the wedding as a guest of Soumit which I met 5 years ago, in Paris, in a classroom at La Defence. He was the craziest person in the room, laughing all the time, even at the worst jokes ever, trying to make everyone feel comfortable in a new environment…In the end, we were all students from other countries who came to study in Paris.

Now let’s fast forward to this year…. After a long series of connection flights, my boyfriend, Vlad, and I ended up in Ahmedabad, one of the top 5 cities in India. Of course, with so many connection flights, we missed the welcoming party, which I heard was pretty cool as well.

The next day, early in the morning, we had to attend the ring ceremony! Please keep in mind, while reading these lines, that as a great friend that I am, I never asked Soumit for too many details, so I had no idea what to expect in any of these days described below. The wedding was apparently pretty small…. Just 250 people! After a rush breakfast and trying to adapt to the new local time with a looooot of make-up, we finally got to the ceremony. Everyone was dressed in Indian traditional outfits (of course, except me!) The variety of vivid colors and the smiles on everyone’s faces made me forget how tired I was and got me into a wedding mood completely. I have no idea what the high priest said for almost an hour, but in the end, everyone attending the ceremony received the famous red mark on their forehead from him.

The ring ceremony was followed by a very delicious lunch on a terrace. I managed to meet up with other colleagues from Paris and also, I discovered Indian food. The guests were divided into family members and Europeans, so we kind of attended, more or less, a buffet with plates and silverware (which was really nice that they considered, since one day later, while I was basically racing some food on my plate with a fork instead of just grab it with my hand, I was told by a young family friend of Soumit, that is very common to eat with your hand). Don’t get me wrong, I am not a snob, I eat sometimes with my hands, fries or popcorn, but the idea of eating this way rice with some sauce, oh well, that’s a bit extreme for me, I wouldn’t know how to do it! Anyhow, the take-back on eating in India – you need to have skills to eat everything that’s on your plate.

In the afternoon, we participated in the Mehndi ceremony – which is the result of getting a henna drawing by the ladies, on their hands. It has an interesting significance – it’s celebrated by the bride’s family and it’s meant to prevent too much stress on the body. Also, the legend says that the darker the color, the more the husband will love the girl. …of course, dear reader, I also got my right hand-painted and the Mehndi was pretty dark and ....long-lasting?…2 weeks later, you should have seen me scrubbing my body to make the henna wash away... Love is big! The party lasted until 10 or 11 PM. The location was very colorful and all the youngsters danced until the very last song.

In the evening, before the wedding, I attended a ceremony held for the closest family members of the groom's family: parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, close friends. It gathered more people than I’ve ever seen at any wedding before. The bridegroom took his blessing from each of the parents, followed by an hour of artistic moments of family members and 5-6 Indian songs. Also, we did not get drunk at all since…alcohol is illegal in Gujarat.

The official ceremony took place the next afternoon on the carefully decorated golf course with all sorts of arrangements, each with its significance in the Hindu tradition. To understand, the arrangement was similar to that of a showroom - the scene for the ceremony in front and the viewers sitting on the rows.

The stage for the official ceremony (Kalyana mandap) was decorated with coconut, fruits and rice flowers which signifies prosperity for the future family.

The ceremony itself lasted about 3 hours, but the most important moment was when the bride and the groom put on each other some garlands of flowers, a sign that they accept each other as partners for life, and the groom gave the bride a red saree, promising her, as part of his vows, that he takes responsibility and he will be there in good times and in bad times. The next 4-5 hours were dedicated to the photo session with all the wedding participants, in various combinations - photos with each family, pictures with the fathers from the summer, photos with the mother's cousins and others. Meanwhile, on the upper floor of the building, dinner was being served.

This was just a wedding, simple, but profound, an opportunity to bring together family and friends.

At the wedding, the food that was served was a traditional vegetarian and I never thought I'd ever see so many kinds of vegetarian food. There were at least 50 stalls (meals) with all sorts of dishes, from the northern to southern India, from Italian pizza to Mexican tacos and about 25 types of desserts.

I am ready for new wedding invitations!