Wedding Celebration

One of the pastor's from the fellowship we attend here who leads the College and Career group and who is also our friend got married this week. 

I haven't been to too many weddings here (only one last year--click here to read about it) and this was my first Christian wedding.  It is wedding season here, probably since the weather is cool and nice, so I've seen many wedding celebrations happening as I traveled through the city. 

This particular wedding was a morning wedding, which I gathered from the other South Asians that that is a bit odd.  It was outside the city a little ways in a beautiful garden.  To start things off, they served coffee and finger foods.  I got a kick out of the coffee making process.  As you can see below, they had a huge pot of coffee mixed up (maybe doesn't look like normal coffee, but it is the South Asian sort--Nescafe, milk, and sugar).  He would get a pitcher full and then the coffee machine thing that you might see in Starbucks to warm it up.

It is customary to wear Saris to weddings, so we did.  We tried wrapping them by ourselves, but the moment we stopped off the bus at the wedding, we quickly found some girls and their moms to help us re-pin and re-pleat.

The wedding ceremony was pretty similar to America.  They even played the Wedding March.  Several ministers were in attendance and all had a part in the service.  We sang in the choir and there were other special music as well. 

The most obvious difference was after the bride and groom had said their vows, the preacher told the groom to lift the bride's veil.  The couple just stared at each other for a time and then they were announced as the new Mr. and Mrs.  There was no kiss as it is too "scandalous" to kiss in public in this culture.

Here are some other pictures from the wedding:

The photographer for the wedding was cracking me up the entire time.  He wore a backwards baseball cap (which no one does here), and was one of the most agile and nimble old men I've ever seen.  He was always getting right in there to take the perfect picture.

Here is the beautiful couple.  As you can see, the bride isn't wearing all white.  In South Asia, brides wear red.  You can't really see it, but she is wearing a white sari and a maroon blouse.  I'm assuming it is both a nod to eastern and western culture, but I'm not sure.

They even had a wedding cake!  I missed the cutting of the cake, but heard the cheers from outside.  We were each given a piece of individually wrapped fruit cake that reminded me of the fruit cake we make at home.

Then it was time to eat!  There were multiple rice, dal, and curry dishes to try and enjoy.  There were also sweets and ice cream!

The next evening the couple held a reception at the groom's parents' home.  I don't think this was the traditional way to do it, but it worked well for them.

They sat like a king and queen and greeted their guests as they came to give them their best wishes. This was a good time for many of the members of the community to come see the couple since not everyone could make it to the wedding the day before.

Julie and I also wore our saris to this event.  Only this time, we wrapped ourselves successfully and did not have to have any emergency re-pinning.  We even got complimented on our wrapping! We were quite proud of ourselves!

At both the wedding and reception, many people from our Fellowship came and celebrated with the couple.  Here is a picture of many of the people who came that are my age.

What a great two days of learning and celebrating!