Monday, August 17, 2009

I've been asked to do a post on what actually goes on at an Indian wedding, so this is that. My second cousin Devi got married this weekend, so I've been in New Brunswick for the wedding. Fair warning - I've just gotten back from the reception as of writing this, so this is going to be a pretty halfhearted post.

Thursday was
some kind of ceremony which mainly involved the girls all getting henna tattoos on their hands! Not being a girl, and not especially desiring henna, I mainly hung out with cousins.

Saturday was the actual wedding! It began with the groom showing up, and walking down the aisle, which took a while. The priest doing the ceremony was pretty long-winded, and tended to drag things out. I kind of dozed off at this point for a bit, but I am informed that I didn't miss all that much. I woke up in time for the satyapadi, where the bride and groom take seven steps together, each of which symbolizes something (don't ask me what). They then exchanged vows - traditionally, the bride extracts seven promises from the groom, and then the groom gets one in return from the bride. After that they exchanged rings, and then the priest went on for a bit, managed to quote Shakespeare and Browning while explaining the ceremonies, and then there was food.

Sunday was the reception. I know that people reading this will be most interested in the differences between Indian weddings and traditional Christian weddings, and they will be mostly disappointed here - as far as I know, the biggest difference was the choice of music. There's a fairly standard repertoire of Guyanese music that gets played at all my family events, sin
ce my mom's side of the family hails from there. Here's a pretty representative sample.

Looking at it, this is a pretty crappy post. I am posting it anyway, because I am sleep-deprived and have been for quite a while, and if I don't fall asleep soon my parents will start snoring. :(

7 comments:

Æther said...

You juuuust made your goal of a Monday post. I'm proud of you. I had my doubts.

I don't envy you for having to sit through a long ceremony. Some Catholic weddings are really short if they don't include a mass, so I get to luck out 50% of the time. Even if a mass is included, I don't think they usually last more than an hour or an hour and a half. I haven't been to such an event in a few years, however, on account of them putting them on dates when I need to study.

As I recall, the reception has always been the same day and isn't very interesting if you don't know any relatives beyond your first cousins.

P. Static said...

I scheduled it at 11:59 for the lols, but even so, it was a near thing. We only got into the hotel a little while ago, and I haven't had internet access for the past three days. :(

We expected the reception to be the same day too, actually. Not sure why it wasn't, probably some scheduling thing at the hotel.

Kiriska said...

lol, for some reason, this was a super amusing post. XD I've never been to any kind of wedding, so it isn't like I could compare anything, but this was interesting anyway, I guess. No pictures?

Sucks about having no Internet for three days though. :(

Kiriska said...

Also, I just noticed you changed the name of the blog. I would be tempted to call you P. Static if I ever see you in person again. :O

Frank Church said...

Yeah, I don't think I've ever actually been to a wedding either. Generally they're too far away. So I'm living vicariously through you and Phyllis on the Office.

Well, I thought it was interesting, even though I wanted more gory detail. Wouldn't mind seeing pictures, either.

P. Static said...

Pictures and details should have been in here, but I was feeling pretty exhausted when I wrote it, and I'm not sure the bride and groom and miscellaneous guests would appreciate photos appearing on random websites.

Kiriska: oddly enough you would be far from the first person to call me p-static in real life. XD

Æther said...

I've been called Ether irl by a few people. Incidentally, my classes are mentioning the ether functional group again. How exciting!