The Hindu wedding

Indian weddings are traditionally three or four day affairs and begin with the mehendi rat - the woman's symbolic evening where the bride's hands and feet are covered with mehendi. A party of the bride's women relatives and in-laws spend several hours at this task during which they sing appropriate songs. For the bride the process is therapeutic in calming and preparing her for the event.
Mehendi is one element of the Hindu woman's "complete decoration", shringar, and is the symbol of satisfaction and happiness in marriage. Traditionally the bride has her groom's initials incorporated secretly into the design and the groom must locate them before he is allowed to share a bedroom with his new wife. Mehendi may also be applied to the groom's hands and feet.

Indian wedding

Some time ago I was fortunate to attend the Indian Marwari wedding. It was very fun and interesting. The groom in the flower-decked car drove up to the house of the bride. The last hundred yards took more than an hour to cover, because the relatives enjoyed dances to traditional and modern Bollywood music played by guest musicians. The car was accompanied by a man with a huge embroidered umbrella. This umbrella seemed to be quite useless, just a tribute to tradition, I think. If the groom would be riding a horse or an elephant, then this umbrella would have been in place.

Nepalese wedding

Yesterday I enjoyed myself at the wedding party. It was Nepali-Indian marriage as a bridegroom was from Nepal and a girl was from India. They met at the USA, fall in love and came here to perform ceremony. Nowadays Nepalese have more freedom to choose who they wish to marry without family interference. Though arranged marriages are still popular. The wedding begins with a gathering of the guests at the groom's house. Celebrations are made and rituals are performed with the priest and the party then travels to the bride's house with the procession or, as it is fashionable now, to a special place where the ceremony would take place. Then the bride is “handed” over to the groom by her parents and goes to the groom's house to become a member of his family.

This is a place for the ceremony. Pandit (a priest) is making preparations.

The priest and the bride

The bride. Beautiful as all brides are.

Circling around the groom with a jug of water.

Mala (garlands) and rings exchange.

Beautiful sari

For some this is a big and important day but for him - just his sleeping hour