Wedding and Reception

Dec 26th

Well we’ve done it. The big day had finally come and passed. It was a really nice experience to get to be an Indian princess for a day. Angela, Greg and my mom all ended up participating in the ceremony and it was so nice to have them around for some support. Ang was my right hand girl- checking in on my powder and tequila to make sure all was in order and available when ever I needed it. The reception was held first and the wedding the following day. Unfortunately, we had to be up at 8 am to get ready for the wedding so a late night was out of the question. Praveen’s family did a great job organizing everything on their own. Typically it is the girl’s family that does most of the arranging but in our case that just wasn’t possible. My favorite part was probably the band. They played all Bollywood songs, just like I dreamt about, and we all danced. One of Sandhya’s friends is a small time actor or something and he was leading several of the dances and we all just followed along. I kept waiting for him to start making us do pushups or headstands or something. Anyway, it was good to have a leader. When I wasn’t following him I was following Sandhya, who is also a very good dancer.

Meeting Sandhya was probably one of the biggest highlights of the trip. She is a very well composed and beautiful person inside and out. I can see why Praveen is so attached to her. I saw some pictures of them in their very early years and even then you could see how happy he was to have her there. She however, looked a bit scared of him. I guess because he spent much of his childhood in boarding school she would often forget that she had a brother and when he came back she didn’t always know who he was. It must have been difficult for the whole family.

Well, we have tons of pictures. I will try and get them uploaded so you can look at more of them but it is difficult because the connections here are very slow.

I will see if I can recollect some of the events of the last few days. The reception was interesting. Praveen and I sat on some chairs that looked like they had been hijacked from the Palace of Versailles or something. Everyone lined up to come and shake our hands and congratulate us. Apparently the bride is not really supposed to touch any men and I think there is suppose to be no hugging. I skipped those guidelines, but only because I had permission from Praveen. (on a side note Praveen has been really great juggling what his parents, his society and what I want- this has to be one of the hardest jobs of the trip). I can’t help but hug the people that want to be hugged and maybe even a few who don’t. I had a hard time being able to NOT show affection to people I care about. I find it really strange that Indians typically have no public displays of affection and it seems to be looked down upon between men and woman even after they are married. At the same time, you see lots of men walking down the street holding hands or with their arms around each other. I asked a few people if they could explain this phenomenon to me, but no one seems to know. One of the best things about being married is now I’m free to touch Praveen when I want to touch him. I guess some cultures are more open and touchy then others. I know when I was in Europe there were times that I would be really uncomfortable with people coming inside of my little bubble. I learned there that Americans have a reputation of being very cold and standoffish. I had never realized that before. I really learned to appreciate the additional affection that people would give. Upon meeting someone they often times would hug or kiss. I adopted this tradition and took it home with me. I have noticed even friends that Praveen has had for a long time, are not always comfortable with that level of touching so I have backed off. It has become so much a part of me that it feels really unnatural now to say good bye to some one I really like without hugging them, but I can respect others boundaries.

Okay I think I am done with that tangent. Now where was I? The reception….After saying hello to around 400 people ( I am guessing) we went to eat. I was somewhat surprised that after shaking all these hands I had no option to wash my hands with soap before eating with them. Normally I carry hand sanitizer everywhere but I didn’t really have an option to carry a bag with me. Despite my concern, I did eat and the food was good.

The next day I got up around 7:30 to take a shower and get ready. Amma had hired someone to come and help me get ready. She did a pretty good job on my hair the day before with some guidance. She suggested that I do my own makeup since I knew my colors and after looking at her makeup bag I was really glad. The choices consisted of some very loud, low quality material. I decided not to wash my hair because I was going to have the hired “professional” add some curl to it before covering it with the traditional flower arrangement. I was suppose to leave the hotel by 9:15 to be at the wedding early so that we could get in without being seen. The stylist arrived with Sandhya at 9:20. I was livid. To top it off, she didn’t bother to bring a curling iron with her. Had I known I would have washed and blow-dried my hair. After throwing a small temper tantrum by slamming a bathroom door instead of slamming her face, which is really what I wanted to do, Sandhya helped me work with her to do something with my hair. I asked Sandhya if it was acceptable for someone to be so late for a wedding styling and she said “no.” I just had to check because the time schedule here is much more loose then the tight time schedule that we keep in the US. When I got to the hall several people asked me who had dressed me. Apparently, she also did a terrible job putting on the Sari. There are many rules about exactly how the pleats should go, how many there should be and a bunch of other stuff I am sure I will never understand. Anyway, I am still working on letting go of that one. Poor Sandhya was in such a rush trying to put everyone together that her Sari was half cocked, she had no makeup on and she still needed to be down stairs to be welcomed into the hall with the rest of Praveen’s family as is customary in the Nair families. She managed to pull it all together and get to where she needed to be and still looked fabulous.

So several of Sandhya’s friends, who were supposed to be my wedding party came out to welcome the family. At this time in the wedding it is customary for all the eligible bachelor’s families to check out the single friends of the bride. If there is some interest then the talks between families can begin and perhaps an arrangement can be made for a wedding. For a wedding to be arranged the two candidates should be from the same caste so that they have several of the same traditions and customs. Also, this would insure that they speak the same language. Every state in India has its own language and several different dialects. Praveen, since he is from Kerala speaks Malayalam but he was raised in Tamil Nadu so he also speaks Tamil. He only speaks Malayalam with his family. He cannot write or read in either language as he was schooled in English. He has several friends from various parts of India that the only language they have in common is English.

After Praveen and his family were welcomed to the stage the same bridal party came to get me out of a back room. Angela and my mom walked me out and stayed on stage with me. The wedding was massive chaos! I had asked several people what to expect and what I needed to know and I was told not to worry that I would be told everything as I needed to know it. Organization is not one of the strong suits of the Indian culture, I’ve observed and this can be quite disturbing. When I got up on stage Praveen was waiting and I was ushered around here and there- making three trips around the stage first with an Aunt then with Praveen, both of whom I had to tell to slow way down so that I wouldn’t trip on this Sari in front of all these people. Apparently no one knows why these things happen in threes only that it was an auspicious number and there are many things that happen in threes. I find this is a common answer when I ask why certain customs are performed. Most people don’t know why they’re doing something, only that they that is just the way it has always been done. We have similar things in our culture that we, ourselves, wouldn’t think of because we have just always been doing it this way.

Okay, so then I bowed at several important peoples feet including Achen (Praveen’s dad), Amma (Praveen’s mother), my mother, Praveen’s grandfather (Mutachen), His uncle and Aunt (Mohan Mamma and Veena) and I can’t remember who else…..then I think we exchanged rings. Things where happening so fast I can’t remember what was going on. Mostly I remember being very confused. At some point Greg was pulled on the stage to do I have no idea what, then there was a necklace put on my neck as a gift from Achen and Amma (it was gorgeous) then a gold bracelets from Mohan Mamma and Veena, then we exchanged some clothes as gifts from my family to his family and visa versa. At some point we exchanged rings. The most important thing was Praveen put the Thali on me and Sandhya tied it, which I think is when the marriage is really set. Oh and there was also an exchange of a lime, which I also don’ t know what was for. The whole thing really was about ten minutes long. The decorations were really nice. Everything looked beautiful. After shaking more hands and getting congratulated by hundreds more people we went down to eat. We were served on banana leaves, which is customary. This is the event that I had been practicing for and it was actually quite simple. Under the banana leaves they used puppy chow paper to cover the tables as a make shift tablecloth. I was shocked. After spending money for a professional decorator and caterer it was hard for me to understand the oversight. I let it slide. It’ll be one of those things I can laugh about the wedding sometime in the future. Praveen spoke to the caterer who basically professed his ignorance that he had not noticed and didn’t think about the puppy chow being offensive or unappetizing. Idiots. After that they turned over the paper but pretty much everyone had already eaten. Good times, good laughs.

I mentioned to Sandhya that for her wedding we should have a rehearsal so that she knows what is going on and she can enjoy the ceremony and she said that chaos is part of the fun. Praveen had a similar reaction to my suggestion. I guess some people are comfortable with such things and some are not. It is interesting that in the US where most weddings are pretty similar there is always a rehearsal, yet here were most weddings are totally different they just go with the flow. Again it’s a difference in culture.

Anyway, all of these things are what make the experience fun and interesting. Over all the wedding and reception when very well and I am totally happy to have a much larger, beautiful family.