The holidays are near, so a friend invited me at the kindergarden, where his daughter and her classmates had a cute little performance, with the girls dressed as snow flakes and the boys as snow men.
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Funny looking young bartenders
And cocktails
And a master juggling with bottles, shakers and glasses
And even fancier cocktails
Prepared by better dressed bartenders
And a jury noting their evolution
And more bartenders juggling with bottles, shakers and glasses
And the jury watching their every move
It was De Kuyper Cup Romania, the yearly bartending competition, of course.
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If in the western world the “official” photo session with the bride and the groom is a must and the bride may kill the photographer if she doesn’t get her pictures with the bridal dress, I discovered that some Indian brides are not the same, in this case she didn’t want photos… and made it in the most Indian way, not saying “no” but “yes” and then avoiding it in various ways.
In fact this is the thing that annoyed me the most in my Indian experience, people there won’t say you a firm “no”, they consider it disrespectful, they will say “yes”, “maybe”, “later” or “we’ll see” and then try to do everything to avoid it. They don’t know this is even more disrespectful for us, Westerners, who prefer a straight “yes” or “no” and then keeping your word. This may be the cause for some of our cultural conflicts.
So, back to the topic: we had the “official” photo session planned for a full morning in a park, then it was moved for something short in the evening at the temple, then for something even shorter at house on the roof, then it didn’t happen, all we did was a few shoots at the reception place.
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Is a long process for the bride to make herself beautiful but the result is showing, after all the preparations (make-up, hair style, clothes, jewelry) she was really shining.
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The ceremony happened to the bride’s home so it and the reception after was organised by her family. Two days later it was followed by another reception, this time at the groom’s place, organized by his family. Here’s the bride making herself beautiful for the reception:
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The groom returned home with the bride, here he encountered another expected “surprise”: the door bas blocked by the women inside, who demanded a price to allow him inside with the wife. And we had a funny part: they asked for “10” so he paid 10 rupies, which is practically nothing, compared with 10 thousands, as they intended. Careful with the words, girls!
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I was warned this is going to happen and be ready with my camera to capture it, but I swear it was genuine: leaving the parent’s house the bride started to cry, it was an authentic cry and it made me feel a bit bad, like a vulture for capturing it… but I remembered I am a photographer and kept shooting.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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 🙂
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Vlad Andrei is going to join the world any time soon (probably in a couple of weeks), so preparing for that, me and his parents went for some photos in the park in a nice afternoon a couple of weeks ago:
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Photography wise, the wedding is a first step, it should better continue with trashing the dress, as I did last week in Vama Veche, at the sea side, with my friends Andeea and Alex.
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Saturday I was invited to take pictures at the graduation ceremony of the Technical Military Academy in Bucharest, class of 2011. Keep in mind, they are not only officers, they are also engineers (specialised in various fields, from rocketry to computers and intelligence)… so they will not only kick your butt, but your brains too… if need be.
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For everything is a first time and for me last week-end was the first time shooting at a weeding, a new and exciting experience. It had also plenty of fun.
To my advantage, I was the second photographer, leaving on the shoulder of my friend Dee all the serious and classic stuff, having for me the freedom to do anything I wanted, so I put the wide lenses on and tried most of the time extreme and crazy angles.
It was also useful that the bride and the groom are my friends, we had good interaction, and as photographers they understood my needs.
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