Wedding

Posted by Akash under Life on July 29th,2007. No Comments.

The past week, my aunt and uncle from California came for our family-friend’s daughter’s wedding. It was a traditional Sikh wedding, though the groom’s family were Hindus. This was my first attendance to a Sikh wedding, and it was different from a Hindu wedding. Thursday night was the Sangeet and Mehndi. There were just some dance performances, music, and the mehndi lady came to put henna on the women. Friday afternoon was when the bride’s side of the family gave gifts to the groom’s side. That evening, the bride’s immediate family gave gifts to all their family and close friends. The bride’s uncle put chudiyan (bracelets) on the bride that night, too.

Saturday morning was the wedding in a banquet hall. The groom actually wore a turban and carried a sword, which is different from Hindu weddings. He also arrived from the parking lot to the entrance on a horse with his family beside him. There was a preliminary thing in the entrance hall, then brunch. The wedding took place at around 11:30 in the hall. The men sat on the ride side of the middle thing, the women on the left, and the bride and bride’s maids in the middle in front of the altar (everyone sat on the floor, by the way). The priest read from the Holy Book and they had to walk around the altar, clockwise, four times (I think it was four… more or less). As the couple walked, a few men were standing around the altar, giving reassurance. My dad was one of them since he knew the bride since she was a little baby. After that, there was lunch and a reception in the evening. The reception was a blast. Great food and bangra dancing.

My aunt and uncle left just now, and this house will be lonely yet again. One of their sons is visiting next week, and my aunt will come here again later that week for my other aunt’s birthday. It’ll never end =) I still have to do my summer work and registration. Bah.

PS – I added a plugin to wordpress so it’ll crosspost everything to LJ.