Beautiful brides.
However beautiful she is (and I do think she is a true English Rose), I think that Kate Middleton wouldn’t get a look in next to the two brides I was lucky enough to see get married in India. They probably had more outfits over the whole wedding ceremony as well, and just as regal.
Hindu weddings are a marathon affair compared to the standard British Christian one. The two I went to involved three days of ceremonies. The first, back in December, was a fusion of Hindu-Nayar (the Bride’s family group) and Roman Catholic (the Groom’s family’s religion), with a beautiful ceremony hosted by each family in different parts of the country. The Nayar celebration was on the edge of the Backwaters of Kerala, early one morning, and was just magical. The Bride and Groom arrived on separate little decorated rowing boats, and were then led by Thalapuli girls (which I was lucky enough to be one of) into the open air marriage ‘hall’, made of wood, coloured cloth, and hundreds of thousands of strings of jasmine flowers.
There was so much colour everywhere, and everyone looked so very beautiful in their saris. And the men obviously looked handsome in their south Indian clad too. After the ceremony, many many photos, and some queuing (because of our lack of knowledge of how not to queue), we had the most delicious Keralan breakfast on a banana leaf.
The second ceremony was held several days later in Gudalur, a little town built off two main roads (with a population the size of Oxford’s) in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu. It took some eight hours by bus, train and disco coach, to get the 65 of us international attendees there. One of my most epic journeys, if only for the all-singing all-dancing disco bus.
It was an equally beautiful ceremony, and brought the odd tear to the converted sports hall. (An unexpected cyclone on the east coast the night before put an end to the plans of having it in the open-air at the Palace on the hill I mentioned staying at before. Amazingly, the Groom’s awesome family and friends managed to move chairs, tables, the cake, garden plants, a load of relatives and the kitchen sink, down a very steep hill to what was a concrete badminton court just a few hours before the show. It was definitely an example of where there’s a will there’s a way.)
The second wedding was probably more traditional, from a Hindu perspective, but also rather untraditional given that the Bride is an Indonesian-born American-educated Indian, and the Groom, a British football fanatic. No-one had any doubt that they weren’t made for each other though.
The event started on Day 1 with industrial-scale decorating of the ladies attending the wedding with henna, including the Bride, who had to sit for about 6 hours as her lower arms and legs, hands and feet were elaborated patterned with the earthy smelling paste. I’d love to introduce this tradition into Western weddings – it makes my rugged hands look so much more beautiful.
Henna hands.
The next Hindu ceremony, the following morning (mornings are auspicious apparently, and the earlier the better) was one to represent the couple’s engagement. It took about 3 hours and involved all sorts of rituals, gifts, chanting, priests, family members, many bananas and some sprinkling of water. I wish I knew a bit more about what was going on, as I suspect did the Bride and Groom from the expressions on their faces. They displayed a stoical strength of endurance through the whole event, especially when they had to walk round and round in circles laden with heavy garlands of flowers after very little sleep.
The night before the true marriage ceremony, there was a Sangeet. Although originally this is more of a north Indian event where the Bride and Groom’s families compete against each other for superior dancing prowess, it seems to have warped somewhat into a night of entertainment for the Bride and Groom provided by their guests. My friend, my ukulele (Jimmy), and I attempted to entertain with a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Jimmy seemed to enjoy it, my friend’s voice turned out to be angelic, and apparently we were entertaining too, which were all welcome outcomes.
Just a few hours later, after we’d left the post-Sangeet dance floor, we were up and trying to dress ourselves in metres of sari fabric. When we left our hotel room at 6am to join the wedding party heading to the Temple, some Aunties mentioned it might be a good idea to get the ladies who’d come to help the white ladies to put on their saris to have a look over our technique (in not so many words!). We promptly were re-dressed. We definitely hadn’t mastered the folding technique yet.
Waiting to get re-saried meant we missed the first few parts of the Temple ceremony unfortunately, but it didn’t seem to matter too much, as there were still many parts, three hours and two meals left by the time we did arrive. It was epic....for the guests - I can’t imagine how epic it was for the couple being married or those others up on the stage. It was a beautiful show again though and very elaborate in ritual and colour. It was a good opportunity to reflect more specifically on the different parts of a wedding celebration and the meanings behind the vows, which are much more subtle and quick in weddings I’ve attended.
There was much more to both weddings than I’ve described, and I’ve hundreds of partially focused photos, mostly of the back of heads, so do invite me around for tea if you want to hear or see any more. And I can lend out the odd sari but can’t promise to show you how to wear it correctly. I would definitely recommend marrying an Indian if you can. It was a complete priviledge to have been invited to attend both of these weddings and testiment to the wonderful two couples that they were such magnificent events.
Me and some chums in saris.
Hindu weddings are a marathon affair compared to the standard British Christian one. The two I went to involved three days of ceremonies. The first, back in December, was a fusion of Hindu-Nayar (the Bride’s family group) and Roman Catholic (the Groom’s family’s religion), with a beautiful ceremony hosted by each family in different parts of the country. The Nayar celebration was on the edge of the Backwaters of Kerala, early one morning, and was just magical. The Bride and Groom arrived on separate little decorated rowing boats, and were then led by Thalapuli girls (which I was lucky enough to be one of) into the open air marriage ‘hall’, made of wood, coloured cloth, and hundreds of thousands of strings of jasmine flowers.
There was so much colour everywhere, and everyone looked so very beautiful in their saris. And the men obviously looked handsome in their south Indian clad too. After the ceremony, many many photos, and some queuing (because of our lack of knowledge of how not to queue), we had the most delicious Keralan breakfast on a banana leaf.
The second ceremony was held several days later in Gudalur, a little town built off two main roads (with a population the size of Oxford’s) in the Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu. It took some eight hours by bus, train and disco coach, to get the 65 of us international attendees there. One of my most epic journeys, if only for the all-singing all-dancing disco bus.
It was an equally beautiful ceremony, and brought the odd tear to the converted sports hall. (An unexpected cyclone on the east coast the night before put an end to the plans of having it in the open-air at the Palace on the hill I mentioned staying at before. Amazingly, the Groom’s awesome family and friends managed to move chairs, tables, the cake, garden plants, a load of relatives and the kitchen sink, down a very steep hill to what was a concrete badminton court just a few hours before the show. It was definitely an example of where there’s a will there’s a way.)
The second wedding was probably more traditional, from a Hindu perspective, but also rather untraditional given that the Bride is an Indonesian-born American-educated Indian, and the Groom, a British football fanatic. No-one had any doubt that they weren’t made for each other though.
The event started on Day 1 with industrial-scale decorating of the ladies attending the wedding with henna, including the Bride, who had to sit for about 6 hours as her lower arms and legs, hands and feet were elaborated patterned with the earthy smelling paste. I’d love to introduce this tradition into Western weddings – it makes my rugged hands look so much more beautiful.
Henna hands.
The next Hindu ceremony, the following morning (mornings are auspicious apparently, and the earlier the better) was one to represent the couple’s engagement. It took about 3 hours and involved all sorts of rituals, gifts, chanting, priests, family members, many bananas and some sprinkling of water. I wish I knew a bit more about what was going on, as I suspect did the Bride and Groom from the expressions on their faces. They displayed a stoical strength of endurance through the whole event, especially when they had to walk round and round in circles laden with heavy garlands of flowers after very little sleep.
The night before the true marriage ceremony, there was a Sangeet. Although originally this is more of a north Indian event where the Bride and Groom’s families compete against each other for superior dancing prowess, it seems to have warped somewhat into a night of entertainment for the Bride and Groom provided by their guests. My friend, my ukulele (Jimmy), and I attempted to entertain with a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Jimmy seemed to enjoy it, my friend’s voice turned out to be angelic, and apparently we were entertaining too, which were all welcome outcomes.
Just a few hours later, after we’d left the post-Sangeet dance floor, we were up and trying to dress ourselves in metres of sari fabric. When we left our hotel room at 6am to join the wedding party heading to the Temple, some Aunties mentioned it might be a good idea to get the ladies who’d come to help the white ladies to put on their saris to have a look over our technique (in not so many words!). We promptly were re-dressed. We definitely hadn’t mastered the folding technique yet.
Waiting to get re-saried meant we missed the first few parts of the Temple ceremony unfortunately, but it didn’t seem to matter too much, as there were still many parts, three hours and two meals left by the time we did arrive. It was epic....for the guests - I can’t imagine how epic it was for the couple being married or those others up on the stage. It was a beautiful show again though and very elaborate in ritual and colour. It was a good opportunity to reflect more specifically on the different parts of a wedding celebration and the meanings behind the vows, which are much more subtle and quick in weddings I’ve attended.
There was much more to both weddings than I’ve described, and I’ve hundreds of partially focused photos, mostly of the back of heads, so do invite me around for tea if you want to hear or see any more. And I can lend out the odd sari but can’t promise to show you how to wear it correctly. I would definitely recommend marrying an Indian if you can. It was a complete priviledge to have been invited to attend both of these weddings and testiment to the wonderful two couples that they were such magnificent events.
Me and some chums in saris.
posted by Lydia Cole at
12:52
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