Indian weddings

This morning I had the opportunity to attend both a real-deal Indian wedding as well as a pre-wedding thinger for the bride (the pre-wedding thinger was for a seperate wedding from the wedding we went to this morning.)


The first thing one should know is that Indian weddings happen at ALLLL sorts of bizarre times and days. Or rather, what seems to a foreigner as a bizarre time and day. For example, I was invited to a wedding that was last Sunday morning at 3am. 3am?! Yeah, 3am. This morning's wedding was at 8:19am. Yes, Wednesday morning at 8:19. The ceremony started before then and goes on and on both before and after that moment of 8:19am, but that auspicious moment is very carefully set. It has to do with astrological collusions and things like that.


There is a lot of loud singing/chanting by a priest through the whole thing (or at least the 40 or so minutes we stayed for.) There are also lots of people milling about in general. People come late, they leave early. It isn't really the sort of thing (as far as I can tell) where everyone shows up at a certain time, things start, things end, then people leave. It is much more fluid than that. In addition to people coming and leaving there are also people walking around, talking, etc. This includes many of the principle characters in the show as well. There are numerous people in the "wings" of the stage where the wedding is going down and they chat, they move around, they help the bride with this or that, they hold a sheet up to keep the bride and groom from seeing each other, etc. There are also sooooooo many colors, just on the ladies though. The bride wears redish/orange-ish colors (in the north it is more definitively "RED" - symbolic of fertility) and all her sisters/cousins and the women in the audience are wearing brilliant colors on vibrant and often shiny fabrice frequently embroidered with fantastic thread or designs. Before leaving the house I was feeling fairly garish in my tricked-out Indian fits (a lovely white dress with heavy gold and silver beadwork) and huge earings. When Sweet Pea's mom attempted to add a necklace to the whole thing I resisted strongly. At the wedding, however, I felt quite bare.

After a bit at the wedding we drove to another matrimonial event. Prior to a wedding both the bride and the groom have independent ceremonies. I didn't quite get the gist of it all but it seems the bride comes out dressed up right fancy amid flowers and incense and foods and such and goes through a series of prayers. Then everyone around blesses her and then we all ate breakfast. I have to admit that the lack of air conditioning, the heat and the clothing conspired to make me less than attentive. I felt positively wilted and wanted to tear my lovely vestiments to pieces at every point they made contact with my skin. Hours later my skin is still red from the heat.

But that's all for now, I must flee for the airport!