Wedding Season

Since we landed in India it has been wedding season. Weddings tend to take place over winter as the weather is ideal for large outdoor gatherings. Whilst I usually associate winter with cold miserable rainy weather, in India, winter is cool and comfortable for most of India with temperatures ranging from the mid teens to high twenties (except for the North where it can be close to zero degrees celcius and in some parts, even lower). As such, it is the favourite season for travelling (especially down south) and outdoor wedding parties.

There are multiple ceremonies and rituals undertaken for a marriage over several days – typically for up to a week in total. Different people from different parts of India will place emphasis on and conduct ceremonies differently. Like in all cultures, weddings can be large or small, simple or lavish. Staying at the hotel, we witnessed many wedding party set ups on the grounds of the hotel. They seemed like rather lavish affairs with a welcome desk in the lobby, a concert stage for a live band and multiple buffet stations scattered around the venue. I later learned that a large wedding was the norm with some weddings hosting up to a thousand guests. During our time in India, we were lucky enough to attend 3 weddings – all slightly different to each other.

Our first wedding was a South Indian Brahmin wedding of our friends from Sydney. The wedding was held in Chennai at a temple in the morning. We arrived after breakfast to learn that the groom had been fasting all night and been up at 6am to conduct religious rituals before the marriage ceremony. Some notable moments included:

• 
  the groom walking away from the ceremony venue, religious book and cane in hand with the bride’s parents chasing after him to convince him not to leave his worldly life and to come back and marry the bride (luckily for us, he had already made up his mind and this was ceremonial more than anything else)
• blessing the bride and groom by throwing flowers at them during the marriage ceremony, and
• enjoying a traditional vegetarian lunch on a banana leaf without the use of utensils – only hand sanitiser and a pappadam as a spoon.

Our second wedding was a typical Bengali wedding in Kolkata. The wedding was for a colleague from work who is of Bangladeshi origin. I learned that it was usual for everyone in the immediate team to be invited to the wedding, so all 30 of us attended. Typically, you are only invited to the party which your colleague pays for. In this case, it was the wedding party hosted by the groom. The wedding was held in a marriage hall. We met the bride for the first time (quite common for attendees to only know either the bride or groom before the wedding) and presented her with our gifts. Then it was onto the buffet. The wedding party was an eating fest for guests and (like some Chinese weddings) the guests left pretty promptly after dinner.

The third wedding was the Sangeet party for another colleague from work. Whilst the couple grew up in Kolkata, their families were of Rajasthani origin, and both families run successful businesses. As such, they held a large opulent Sangeet party at the Royal Calcutta Golf Club. The Sangeet party was a celebration of music and dance where family members perform dances for the bride and groom. At this particular party, the bride and groom also performed a dance. It was a very Bollywood affair with official compares, back up dancers, smoke machines and a Cinderalla carriage from which the bride emerged. An amazing party and production.

Weddings are big business in India with professional wedding planners, large venues and hundreds and hundreds of guests. There might be differing views on arranged and love marriages but regardless, the parties are amazing!