Saturday, August 28, 2010

Indian Wedding!

Wednesday night, we decided it would be a good idea to crash an Indian wedding. Well, we weren't quite crashing it...but we were only invited because the groom's father thought it would be cool to have Americans attend the wedding. We wouldn't let that slightly sycophantic reason deter us.

We got all dolled up in our fancy saris, gold bangles, and sparkly bindis. Let me tell you, saris are no joke. It took me 5 hours of wearing one to finally figure out the trick to walking (Like walking on a balance beam, or a catwalk walk: one foot straight in front of the other. Attitude optional.).
Me, Ally, and Heidi all dressed up:



The wedding was no joke either. (Bad, rickshaw picture)


Over 1,000 people were on the guest list, and I'm sure other freeloaders joined in. That's the most food I've seen at a wedding, ever. Curries, veggies, curried veggies, white rice, fried rice, dahl, yohgurt-donuts, egg rolls, chinese noodles, pasta, roti, chapati, naan, weird Indian desserts, endless butterscotch and chocolate ice cream, fruit salad...and other things I don't know the names of. And, a weird drink station, where they made us strange and gross coctails of guava juice, club soda, Sprite, and Thums up (like Pepsi). Yuck and yuck.

After thanking the groom's father, congratulating the bride and groom (and sprinkling rice over their heads—a popular Indian gesture), we sat down to watch the proceedings...and we were kind of the only ones.

It seems that most of the wedding guests couldn't care less about the actual ceremony, they just came to eat and chat...which is sort of understandable if you consider that the ceremony lasts at least 4 hours. Lots of blessings to give and promises to make, people!

Sea of people in the food room:



We went up on stage where the ceremony was being held to awkwardly take pictures:


We gave in around 11:30, heading home just when the bride and groom were beginning games they play to show their trust in each other, or something. It doesn't really look like it in this picture, but they mainly looked excited to be getting married:


Thoughts: Weddings are weddings, no matter where you go. A little fun, a little boring, a lot crazy.

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