Wedding invitations

One of the most important things in preparing for a wedding in Nepal is sending invitations to all the guests (and the amount of guests sometimes is more than 1000). I already have quite a big collection of such wedding invitations. They all are creative, beautiful, some are from handmade Nepalese paper. They all are different, no same design two times. But there is one thing in common to all of them – there is an image of god Ganesha on all the invitations.
Ganesha is the most popular of Hindu gods. He is easily recognizable by his elephant head. How did he get it? After his marriage to Parvati Shiva went off to Mount Kailash to meditate. He spent years there during which his son Ganesha was born. When Shiva returned home finally he found a young boy guarding his house’s door. The boy didn’t let Shiva inside because his mother Parvati was bathing. Shiva didn’t know the boy was his son and in rage he cut off the boy’s head. Parvati was in hysterics and Shiva had to do something to calm her. He tried to find the head but it was lost. Then Shiva was told to kill the first living being he came across and place it upon his son’s shoulders. That happened to be an elephant and so, that is how Ganesha got his new image. Parvati was unhappy that her son would look kind of ridiculous and to cheer her up Shiva said that Ganesha would be always worshipped first by people, before any other god. That is why Ganesha is considered bringing luck and is in the start of any deed including a wedding.
Here it is a few photos of the Nepalese wedding invitations from my collection.