Hindu Wedding

Three nights ago I attended a Hindu wedding. It was amazing. A line of 30 white horses with riders and torch men greet attendees along the entrance road. The groom entered riding a horse, the bride entered to fireworks. There was a flower cannon which fired flowers like confetti over the happy couple. There was a full-fledged production crew videotaping the whole event. They had a jumbo-tron TV set up so all the guests could see what the bride and groom were doing. I'd say around 1000 guests. And lots of dancing. everyone dancing

Soo much dancing. Much more than in Western weddings. The groom’s entrance was preceded by dancing, as was the bride’s. Indians kept dragging me into their ebullient little mosh-pits. Saying "enjoy! This is a happy time!" 80 year olds doing the funky-chicken, four year olds just jumping up and down. The Indians are really good dancers, but being white, I confined myself to doing the “screw in the light bulb, turn the door knob,” or “the grocery cart,” both of which they found very funny.

I didn’t stay for the whole thing. I went with a German friend I met through Dave and Shannon. We arrived at 19:45, since the invitation said it would begin at 20:00. Of course this being Indian Stretchable Time, events did not actually kick off until 21:15. The actual union ceremony, which involved walking 7 times together around a fire, wasn’t to take place until the most auspicious moment, determined by star charts to be 4:23 in the morning. So, having decided we’d seen enough to get the flavor of an Indian wedding, and following the maxim that one should leave a party while you still want to stay, we beat a regretful retreat around 23:00, heading for an Oktoberfest celebration being thrown by the Germans.