A Wedding in India

Last night I attended my first, and hopefully not my last Indian wedding. We started the evening by getting ready in our sarees that all of us had just purchased to make sure we didn't totally stick out ( I don't think it worked). Our host mama, Mumta was a doll and "drapped" all five of ours sarees for us. It's quite the task, one that I admire for so many of the women doing it everyday. We headed out, the whole family. Mamta, her two boys, her brother and father and the five of us girls. We all crammed into an autorickshaw and headed off. As we turned onto the street where the wedding was to take place we found ourselves behind the parade carrying the groom. While he was close it would still be over an hour until he actually arrived at the building. We walked into the building and was greeted by the sister of the bride who had invited us and welcomed us with open arms. As we made our way to the food several children came up to us to ask us questions or shake our hands. Trying to get food was a struggle. While most of us towered over the women, we were being beat out of the buffet area by good ole granny, I gotta learn to hold my own around here. After loosing my place several times I was finally able to get a plate full of delicious Indian food. We stood around in our sarees eating with our hands doing our best to tear the roti with only one hand, even though I haven't quite got the nack of it yet. And of course I slopped some sort of greese on my saree and than later some ice cream like dessert (kaulfi). At one point we were lead to a room off to the side to greet the young bride. She wasn`t allowed to take part of the celebrations and was meant to sit waiting for her husband. I can only imagine how nervous and terrified she was sitting there waiting to meet her husband for the first time infront of a room full of people, and she looked it. After that we were brought onto the dance floor by some of the brides sisters and then they just left us to dance to hindi music with a circle of people around watching. None of us know any hindi dance moves, so needless to say we looked helpless so some of the women came back in to help us out. We felt a little on display, but that was only to be expected. One the groom arrived at the building the music stopped and things started to quiet down. There were several ceremonies that happened along the way from the front of the building into the area where they would be wed. The groom and bride were still not permitted to see each other. It was interesting to see all the different cermonies that went on along the way, but I couldn`t help but notice that the room that had originally been packed full of people was now rather empty and the cermony hadn`t even come close to finishing. We all also noticed that neither the groom or bride smiled at all. I thought maybe it was a tradition to stay very serious, but our host mama told us that typically isn`t the case and most couples would smile. Once they threw flowered necklaces over one another the ceremony was over, they were married and we left. The whole process was not only different from what we would do at home, but also from what I expected an Indian wedding to be. We have been invited to another wedding early next week, so I am excited to see what the differences and similiarities are going to be. Plus I get to wear my saree again!