Monday, August 18, 2008

Indian wedding

In India, they have two types of weddings. One is arrange marriage which is what your parents think is best for you and how they agree with parents of the other family. The other is love marriage, a marriage when you choose a person to marry but still your family has to approve it.
I have seen Hindu wedding, arranged marriage. The celebration and wedding party was for two days but we could attend only the second day. When we came everybody was very friendly to us, I guess because we are foreigners. Everybody was just eating, dancing, chatting for the first two hours.
Afterwards we saw the bride. She was wearing red dress, mendhi and lots of jeweleries.
The ceremony was as following:
The groom comes on a horse. All his friends and family are celebrating and dancing in front or around him. He was wearing a necklace made from money and seemed really happy.
Afterwards he comes to the gate where the brides family awaits him. According to tradition they don't allow him to enter unless he pays something. And here comes bargaining again. Indians bargain a lot, even the price of their bride.
When he finally comes to the hall and sits in his chair waiting for the bride it takes another one hour till she comes. Both of them then exchange rings because the fourth finger is supposed to be linked with your heart.
Afterwards people come and congratulate, celebrate, eat or leave.
Shocking part of the wedding was that neither groom nor bride seemed really happy when they were together. Both of them were a bit worried and confused. The other thing is that not all the people went to congratulate the "happy" couple. Most of them just came, ate and left. I am not sure if the bride or groom knew all of the people who came.

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