posted by Strothi on English, Fotography, India Project, Livin' my Life

Hey folks,

I thought I should share again some „Indian Experiences“ with you guys 😉 As some might have read on twitter or facebook, Ana and me recently went to a wedding! That has been an awesome experience, as Indian weddings are way different then the European ones. Down here, right now it’s „wedding season“ and no kidding, never ever I’ve seen so many weddings taken place as right now around me. I actually stopped counting even the ones in my neighborhood, as there are simply way too many Indians that apparently want to get married… 😉

Alright, so when Ana arrived here a couple of weeks ago, she told me: The one thing I really wanna do in India is going to a wedding! While I’m normally known for my organizational skills, I somehow doubted to be able to get my hands on an invitation easily. Guess what, next day I was given one by a good friend of mine! Strike 😉

So before going to the actual wedding, shopping had to be done, as we wanted to be dressed appropriately! 🙂 While I don’t like shopping that much, it was ok and – considering to be shopping with a girl – a rather fast process 🙂 Now I think it’s better let pics speak – many of you might have seen them already. This is what we bought:

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Isn’t Ana looking just gorgeous? I love my dress as well and look at my shoes… 😉 So we went to the wedding fully dressed up Indian style just to find out that a lot of people either didn’t care at all what they were wearing, wore casual stuff or dressed up very well. On top of that, you could see people dressed up in Western, Indian style and somewhat in between… 😀

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The whole thing took place at a very nice venue, the Officers Club here in Delhi. Just imagine, they handed out invitations to 1000-1500 people and they all wanted to eat and drink – for free! The food was really good, entirely vegetarian but encompassed a broad variety of Western and Indian dishes 🙂 So even before the happy couple was on scene, everybody was busy eating… 😉

My friend gave me a call to get out of the venue to see the „Barat“, a tradition where the groom rides to the venue. Well, riding refers only to the „sitting on the horse“, as many people dance in front of him, thus the whole group moves about 10 meter in 5 minutes… 😀 When I was about to take some pics I was spotted by a family member of my friend who pulled Ana and me right in front of the whole parade… Now we had to dance 😉 Moreover, before entering the venue there’s a ceremony, where the male members of the grooms family give a bloomy neckless to the members of the brides family and vice versa. Guess what, suddenly someone pulled me right into the middle, gave me one of these necklesses and then I gave it to some guy from the brides family… 😀 I’d call that „being fully integrated“ 😉 Later we found out that they probably thought that I was a friend of the groom who had studied in the US, whereas I did not know him but his cousin 😉

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After we „survived“ the ceremony to enter, we enjoyed the great food and just chilled a bit. To our disappointment, nobody was up for dancing and the whole thing remained pretty calm. But that helped getting to know my friends family… 🙂

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After another ceremony, where the bride and groom do the „neckless hand-over“ themselves, a „photo-show“ started, where everybody wanted to have a pic with the couple. Now you might wonder, why the bride looks so sad on all the pic. Well, I was told that a) she has to look „not too happy“ (no idea why that though) and b) the whole wedding ceremony started on Monday, the Barat I’m just telling you about on the following Sunday, so I guess she was a bit tired and fed up with everything as well…

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To our surprise, the couple wasn’t married by then: The whole wedding process started at around 1:30 am on Monday lasting for at least another two hours. Interestingly, even before the ceremony started, the majority of the guests were gone! It was basically only Ana, me and the family members who were still there to see, so we decided to trust into the couple (that they would actually really get married 😉 ) and left the wedding 🙂

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All in all it was a fantastic experience, just the lack of dancing was a little disappointing. Oh by the way, I love my dress and look forward to the next costume party outside of India… 😉

Take care, Strothi

Tags: Barat, Delhi, India, Wedding