So we got off the plane and headed back to the Wedding HQ (aka the "Big House" where all the family had been put up in) to regroup with everyone and kick off the beginning of a celebration filled wedding weekend. We arrived at the tail end of a ceremony of some sort but got some delicious Indian food for dinner. Me, Nick, Ken & Melanie (who both just got off the plane) and Robert.
I got warned that Indian Weddings are all about eating, dancing, eating, dancing...(repeat). No joke, right after dinner folks just started dancing on the rooftop of the building where we had just eaten dinner.
Apparently things got a bit too noisy on the roof, so we took the party down to the street. Yes, the middle of the street.
And we just kept on dancing...
And dancing...
We made a lot of drivers angry by blocking the narrow roadway. How inconvenient of them to just drive through our dance floor!
Our street dancing as seen from high up in the "Big House".
We all got a pretty good sleep that night after all the dancing (and for me and the Pre-wedding folks, the travel too). The next day, we got to participate in some more ceremonial fun. This, from what I can recall a month later, was a ceremony welcoming friends and family.
We all got tilaks (a term I presume is correct based on a bit of Googling). Here I am getting my mark: a bit of red paste applied to the forehead with a grain of rice stuck in the middle.
Nick's turn.
Robert.
Ken.
Jonathan.
Kristyn.
Maegan.
And Melanie.
After that, we continued to the next ceremony where the women in the family covered Priyanshu in turmeric (a culturally important spice).
Then he cleaned himself up and got dressed by his male family members. Pretty spiffy looking.
After getting all dressed up respectably, Priyanshu rode a white horse through the street, surrounded by friends and family, on his way to the temple. Yeah, we danced a bit in the streets again too.
And we blocked traffic too. You can see the procession as we walked down the road.
We got bussed to a fancy hotel in Gurgaon (a newer city on the outskirts of Delhi near the airport) for the first fancy shindig of the weekend: a family get together filled with food and dance. Here Priyanshu gets a bit of help dressing from Ankit's wife Sonam.
Us American folk got dressed in our pretty, traditional Indian clothing, which impressed many of the family members who we spoke to.
These weddings are taken very seriously in a lot of ways, one of which was in how thoroughly it was to be documented. There was a team of photographers and cameramen to capture every magical moment of the wedding including many of the smaller ceremonies were participated in earlier.
Various family members took their turn dancing for the the bride and groom. Here you (kinda) see four of Priyanshu's cousins dancing.
Tamanna's brother Gaurav and his wife at the end of their dance.
Priyanshu dancing with his brother's wife. With the limited amount of dance practice he got, he was helped by the choreographer sitting just below the stage and motioning the upcoming dance moves. It turned out pretty well all things considered.
What I like to refer to as "The Main Event". Here we start our medley of dances with a performance of Jai Ho.
Giddy up! One of the moves from another "Bollywood" dance number. Quite a lot of fun and I think we performed pretty well (a fair reflection on the hours spent on practice).
After finishing a total of five dances, we had a "fake" ending and pulled up Priyanshu for an encore performance of Jai Ho.
He starts off giving the impression to the crowd that he doesn't know what's going on.
But he has actually practiced with us and dances in-sync with the group (much to the delight of the crowd).
And a fantastic finish to cap off a remarkable performance! The crowd goes wild!
Finally Priyanshu and Tamanna, having spent most of the rest of the evening planted in their chairs, get an opportunity to dance together. They performed beautifully despite spending a lot of the past week apart from each other without much (or any really) opportunity to practice together.
So we skip Sunday day and here we are in the evening and Priyanshu is now parading through the street in a horse drawn carriage surrounding by what I'd estimate as being just under a hundred dancing friends and family. Yes, we find ourselves blocking a full lane of traffic on a busy stretch of road.
Ankit & Nick bring the action up closer to Priyanshu by climbing up onto the carriage to dance for a bit.
Nick & Gaurav exchange flower garlands (I dunno what it's really called, I'm just pretty sure it's not called a lei).
Yup, we came to the right ballroom.
What followed after we got into the ballroom was a multi-hour procession of guests who came to eat from the buffet, dance and take pictures with Priyanshu and Tamanna. We being good friends hung around, danced and kept them company. After all that madness, and after the majority of the guests left, the close family and friends got to sit down at a giant table for a late dinner (about 11pm I'd guesstimate). This is the kind of dinner where the waiters keep coming by with plates of food that never seem to end and they refuse to allow you to have an empty plate at any time. No doubt we got pretty stuffed, pretty quickly.
And just when we were at our most full, the desserts came out and the "no empty plates" dance began again...much to the misfortune of our stomachs. We got to participate in another cool tradition where all the family and friends continually feed the bride and groom desserts. After hungrily eating their dinner, Priyanshu and Tamanna had to endure spoonfuls of sweets. I'm not going to lie, I personally enjoyed feeding them both spoon after spoon of ice cream, cake and gulab jamun (the quintessential Indian dessert).
An empty ballroom after our dinner at about midnight. And we weren't even close to being finished at this point...
Finally the priest! One more ceremony to go...then they can be officially married.
We braved the cold Delhi night outside to view the ceremony.
Pretty garlands decorating the gazebo in which Priyanshu & Tamanna recited their vows.
Yeah, we were all pretty darn tired. I think this might have been taken around 2am.
So there's a little fire in the center of the tent into which Priyanshu and Tamanna would place things such as turmeric spice, ghee (butter) and puffed rice as they repeated the priest's words.
They recited 7 major vows (kinda like "for richer or poorer" but a lot more comprehensive). After each, they'd walk clockwise around the fire and toss something into the fire (which also helped to keep them warm). I think this picture was taken at about 3am. Upon completing the seventh go-around the circle, they were then officially husband and wife.
Congratulations Priyanshu and Tamanna!!! For those of you interested in keeping track of time, this was almost 4am.
What a beautiful and amazing ceremony to have had the privilege of taking part in. Thanks to Priyanshu and Tamanna for letting us be a part of their special day(s)! Tune in next time as the travels continue (seriously I'm not done yet).
P.S. If you want to see the video of our dance, (yes, the dance) ask nicely and I just might email you a link.
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1 comment:
Loved seeing new cultures. thanks for sharing.
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