Amazing Wedding!

Last night we went to the most amazing wedding ever!!! The groom in this wedding was in our friend Rahul's family. We were expecting a nice wedding, but when we got there we were amazed!! The pic below shows the entry way. This entry way was super long! It took us about 5 minutes of walking to get from the entrance to the wedding area! The orange and red you see are strings of flowers!!! There were millions of flowers hanging up everywhere! When you first walked in there was a huge open room. It was sectioned off into areas with couches and tables. There were fancy fires on stands everywhere to keep you warm. There were all sorts of snacks and drinks available. There was a Costa Coffee stand, a Juice Bar, Soup & Bread Bar and waiters walking all around serving snacks!

The Brides' family is the one that was throwing this wedding. Their family owns a very famous Paan company here and their business is a multi-million dollar business. There was a paan bar set up there too. The pic below is of Shalin (Rahul's younger brother), me, Rahul's aunt and Adam.

There were about 10,000 people invited to this wedding. They said there were probably over 5,000 there last night! Amazing! The pic below is of the main entrance room. On the right side you can see where the little couch areas are (they are behind the pillars). Look at all the flowers!
There was a big orchestra at this wedding. All of the string instruments were electric and there was a synthesizer with them. They were playing famous bollywood songs! It was so cool! This was a huge 4 day wedding. The night before this, they had a very famous bollywood singer performing. It was so cool! The conductor of this orchestra wore lots of shiny and sequined jackets. About every couple of songs he changed jackets! haha! It was awesome!

Now this part was pretty crazy! The bride's side of the family has been planning this wedding for over 5 years. Her father went to an auction about 5 years ago and saw this train at the auction - yes, a train.... (see the pic below). He bought it and has been fixing it up and preparing it for the last 5 years to prepare for this wedding. He even built a real train track underneath the train! They fixed it up to mimic the Palace on Wheels . There were a bunch of different rooms in it with chairs, tables and snacks. It was nice and warm inside too. It was really cool! (I'll have a few inside pics posted on the other blog later - check it out: www.SouthAsiaShefs.blogspot.com ).

Here's a picture of Adam & I with Rahul's mom :)

These people had thought of EVERYTHING! There was an amazing children's area. There was a big stage area full of pillows they could run around on. They had a huge flat-screen TV that had Popeye playing (a very favorite cartoon here) They also had a man that would give you all the candy you wanted!!! You can see the candy area in the pic below :)

They also had an area in the kids section where any kid could get their characterization drawn (I don't know how to spell the other word)... They had a bunch of artists drawing the children. This little girl in the pic below was so funny! She wanted to show me her drawing and the candy in her mouth :)

Here's a pic of Adam, Aashini and I . We had to really bundle Aashini up - it was cold! The area behind us in the pic was the main food eating area. This is where most of the guests ate. They had food from all different areas of the world. They had Chinese food, Mexican food (that really tasted like Mexican food), Middle Eastern Food, Italian Food (with a make-your-own-pasta bar) and Indian Food. They also had a salad area with salads from all over the world.

Here is a picture of the Bride and Groom with the Pundit. You can't really see, but behind them in the picture is a HUGE waterfall! There were tons of pools of water coming from the waterfall. The tops of all of the pools of water were covered in rose petals! The platform that the bride and groom are standing on is a clear platform and you could see the rose petals below them - it was really cool!

There were a lot of important people there from all over the country! A lot of business owners and politicians. The politician in the pic below is very famous. He had quite the entourage with him. He had at least 15 men with guns there to protect him! Crazy!!

The decorations at this wedding were amazing! This one (below) made me laugh. It was at the soup and bread bar. The head is made of a big pumpkin.

I mentioned before that there was an area where most of the guests ate. The close members of both sides of the family ate in another big fancy room. They sat at tables and were served their food. We were invited to eat in this room as well. There was a man (below) providing the musical entertainment for that room. I'm not sure exactly what they were. I think they were terracotta discs that he was beating on - it was really interesting, but the music kinda gets on your nerves after a while, it is a weird sound - haha!
Here's a pic of Rahul's mom and Uncle (standing on the top left) with the bride and groom. I love this pic because it's almost impossible to get the people here to smile for pictures - especially to get the bride to smile on her wedding day (she's supposed to be sad) - but I guess this was a good match because everyone was smiley and happy :)

The bride's family gave gifts to the groom's side of the family. They gave Adam & I one of the gifts... check it out below. I think it's perfume, it has a really unique smell. It's super fancy and weighs at least 5 pounds!

It was an amazing wedding - it was so cool! I have a bunch of pics - so if you want to see more let me know! :)