Mohan's Wedding

Wallace Holland (Tam's husband) came into town and he was my first official guest. After working in Bangalore for two weeks he was in Delhi to attend his coworker's wedding. Lucky me, I was also invited.

The bride is from the North and the groom is from the South and so the wedding was a mix of different traditions. The couple had been dating for around 10 years and so this wedding was a 'love marriage' and not arranged by the families. It was such a different experience than an American wedding that every single part was eye opening. Despite being almost two hours late, we arrived in time for the 7 circles around the fire, the most important part of a Hindi ceremony. The timing of the ceremony, noon to 12.30 on Valentines Day, was chosen by a priest who read the couple's horoscopes to choose the exact time. Essentially, the stars predicted a Valentine's Day wedding.

The sari's were beautiful and most of them were in the Southern style. Stiff raw silk with detailed gold embroidery on the edge and beautiful colors. Northern sari's tend to be silk georgette with a lot of crystals sewn on and they are nice but not really my style so the opportunity to see a very different style of sari.

Perhaps my favorite part was at the end when we were sitting and talking with Mohan's friends. It was casual and and I could tell their friends were really happy that everything worked out. Indian weddings are about the joining of the families and the bride becoming part of the groom's family. This is very different from American traditions where the new couple tend to become independent from both families. However, the support from friends is exactly the same.