Category: India

Indian wedding: the feeding

With the ceremony over (around midnight) people went to eat and unlike the Romanian weddings I know, is not an all-night-long party, people just go to the reception place, eat then go away, leaving the space for others to come and eat.

One of the last to have food that night is the new couple, and while I don’t think is part of the tradition, I found cute seeing how she is feeding him 🙂 But is not the end, there are things to come…

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the red paint

A final step of the ceremony is when red paint is put on the bride‘s forehead (and nose, and top of the head, and hair). Now it is done, they are married, ceremony is over, time to party!

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the fire

The fire has an important role during the wedding ceremony: someone makes a fire, then the groom stand behind the bride, they put some food (cereals I believe) into the fire, they circle around the fire and repeat the operation a few time. It looks like a purification of sorts.

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the law

At some point of the religious ceremony someone from the authorities showed-up for the legal part of the marriage, he had the parts, bride, groom and fathers, sign the papers. Unlike the European weddings I saw before, the legal part happened at the same time and in the same place with the religious part and the authorities came to the ceremony instead of bride and groom going to the city hall.

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the ceremony

After the garland exchange the bride and the groom stepped in the area previously delimited by the priest. I don’t know exactly what happened since they were talking bengali, which I don’t understand a word, but I believe there were even more blessings, this time made by the priest. It took a long while.

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: garland exchange

A first step of the official ceremony was the garland exchange: both the groom and the bride were wearing a flower garland and when they first meet they exchanged those garlands three times. Then they kept wearing the garlands until the end.

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the attendance

As expected, a lot of guests attended the wedding ceremony and most of them were wearing traditional Indian dresses, who made for a wonderful combination of colors. At times the place became very crowded, being hard for the photographer to move around (and they didn’t care about the photographer, to let him do his job):

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the fathers

Fathers are also important in an Indian wedding: before the religious ceremony the groom’s father visited the bride, blessed her and offered a present (in this case a necklace) and then the bride’s father visited the groom for blessings and offering a present (a modern watch in this case):

indian wedding
indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the priest

The religious part essential in a traditional Indian wedding, it was the highest point. For this there was a wisely-looking priest (someone told me how much he’s looking like Rabindranath Tagore), who here is preparing the place for the future ceremony: he delimited a square where nobody else than the “actors” were allowed, I as a photographer, was forbidden to step inside.

indian wedding priest

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Indian wedding: the beauty

Anywhere a wedding happens, may it be India, Europe, the Americas, no matter where, there is a thing in common: the very center of the ceremony is the bride and her beauty. So was the case here too, we had a beautiful bride, with a beautiful dress, in a beautiful location.

indian wedding beauty

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Indian wedding: the groom

As there can’t be a wedding with no bride, it also can’t be one with no groom. So while she was doing her job on her room, receiving guests, accepting presents, posing, he was doing the same in his own room, on his own throne, just a floor below.

indian groom

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Indian wedding: the bride

There can’t be a wedding with no bride, she is essential part of the ceremony. She was here on a throne, waiting for the big moment, receiving the guests, posing with them, accepting presents, smiling. In a word, doing her job.

indian bride

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Indian wedding: the road

Since the bride was in a different city (about 200 km away) and the main ceremony was happening at her place, the groom side travelled in a convoy. Of course, a car was standing out, the one carrying the groom. Its decoration reminded me a bit about the car decorations in a Romanian wedding, but were more excessive.

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the blessings

If one thing happened a lot at the Indian wedding, this was the blessings: they were doing it at every step and again and again – the groom parents blessing the groom, the women in the groom house blessing the groom, the women blessing the plate at the river, the groom father blessing the bride, the bride father blessing the groom, the bride family blessing the groom, the groom family blessing the bride… and some more I forgot about for the moment 🙂

indian wedding

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Indian wedding: the presents

The groom’s family prepared a lot of presents for the bride and her family. They were decorated by a specialist, a guy who does wedding present packaging for a living, then sent away, Of course, the bride’s family did the same, sending its own batch of presents. This exchange happened the day before the main wedding ceremony.

indian wedding

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