India Part II (The Wedding)

Before going to India, I didn't really know what Indian weddings entailed. Here is a little of what I've learned.

This is us and the bride and groom after a long day at the wedding hall. The wedding ceremonies started the night before with a washing and cleansing process. The next day the groom and his parents went to the wedding hall around 6 in the morning and we followed about an hour later. There were things going on all day.

Bhaskar and Deepika. The rice all over is symbolic of blessings. I've never seen so much rice thrown before!

This is me in a sari. You wouldn't believe how complicated these things were to put on. Let's just say that I didn't dress myself for that part of the day. The lady putting it on me kept asking me questions like "Do you want 3 or 4 pleats?" Finally Bhaskar's sister told her that it didn't really matter since I had never worn one before.

This is the wedding hall and the outfit that I wore for the most of the day because it was the most comfortable. What I am wearing here is a dress that you see a lot of girls my age wearing. I think that they are a lot more practical and more comfortable. After I had changed back into this outfit after wearing the sari, a little girl asked me (in Telugu-the language spoken in this part of India) where my scarf was. I didn't understand her of course, but there were plenty other people around to tell me that I had forgotten my scarf.

Before the bride and groom saw each other.

This is a tradition where the groom (Bhaskar) tells everyone that he has decided to call the wedding off and live his life as a bachelor. Then the brides family comes and persuades him to go through with the wedding.

Deepika, the bride. This was an arranged marriage, like most of the marriages in India.

The final ceremony done at the wedding hall (there is more that goes on once the bride and groom go back to his parents house that night and then in the morning) is one that I thought was pretty cool. Here the bride is being accepted by every member of the groom's family. Once the bride is married she is no longer a part of her family, but becomes part of her husband's family. Another thing that I learned is that you can tell whether a woman is married or not by the color of her bangles. Darker bangles means that the woman is married.