Skip to main content

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! :)

Comments

Christie said…
That is amazing. Such luxury. I bet people save for a lifetime in order to have a wedding over there.
Anonymous said…
How fun to be included as family. Hope that made for some good contacts. Did the father know who she was going to marry the five years he has been preparing?
Anonymous said…
Very interesting post. What an extravaganza! Shoot, you don't hear much about father's helping to plan weddings around here! He did well!

Off topic, I thought of a question for you. Hopefully you haven't covered it before and I missed it. Could you please show us how you wrap your sari?
so cool! i'm up for more pictures if you want to put them up! it's so interesting! and by the way, are sari's as comfortable as they look? b/c i think that walking around all day wrapped in a long piece of fabric would even beat out staying in pj's all day!
Bronie said…
i love it when you post stuff like this...cultural but that includes you guys! btw, you look gorgeous! has the change in wardrobe been a difficult one? knowing you, you just make it all fun anyway. :)
Wow! What a wedding! I can't imagine planning that wedding. Was this an arranged marriage? Those pictures are beautiful! I am so glad you guys were able to be there! Where was RauL?? I didn't see him in any of the pics.
merritt said…
I can't imagine a wedding like that! It's amazing to think that went on in real life, not just some movie! Thanks for all the pictures. It's fun to see. Love the sari, by the way.
Aliciaq said…
Wow, thanks for this post. That has to be one of the coolest, craziest things ever! It must have been so cool to be there and experience that. Wow! Thanks again for sharing!

Alicia
Erin G said…
Indian people know how to dress up so much better than Americans! Those clothes are stunning!!!!
Jill said…
that is amazing. i bet it was a really cool event to attend. the money they must have spent boggles my mind!thanks for all of the great pictures - feel free to post more! :)
Emily said…
How jealous am I right now?? :) Man! It's like right off of KKKG. A train?! That's impressive.
I love the color coordination between you two, and your sari is gorgeous.
Deanna said…
Great post!!!! That looked absolutely amazing. And I loved your dress. You guys have cool clothes down there. I'd love to see more - it looks like it was a night to remember!
The Agarwals said…
Yay! Thanks for the explanations behind all the pics- it makes much better sense now!! What an ordeal- can you imagine throwing something that big over here? Whew! 5 years of planning wouldn't even scrape the surface! Oh, and we are so excited that you got to meet the fam! We're trusting that your relationship will continue to grow with them! ;-)I know Rahul was sad he wasn't able to be there for this wedding! But, we were glad to have him back a few days early!!
Love you guys!
What an amazingly impressive display of excess that would make any American wedding pale in comparison! I bet the waterfall flowing under the stage was cool to see and I agree with everyone else... your clothes are amazing!

Why is the bride supposed to be sad?
Jeremy's fam said…
Wow is right! That is amazing!
valerie. said…
i felt like i was watching a bollywood movie while reading this...i am beyond jealous. i don't roll with this kind of people...yet! :)
allhisblessings said…
I'm soooo shocked right now, if you could have only seen my chin drop more and more as I read your post and looked at the pictures. I think it would have taken five years just to string all those flowers!
Joshua said…
Andrea. Your page is AMAZING! I have not seen it in awhile and I have to say I am very impressed. You guys look like you are doing so many awesome things. When was your daughter born? How do you like parenthood?

If you want to e-mail me, my personal e-mail is jgw4041@yahoo.com My work e-mail is joshua.white@akerman.com Drop me a line! - Josh

Popular posts from this blog

Campa Cola & Exploring :)

Today we had some things to do in the Central part of our city, so while we were there, we decided to take on some adventures :) Adventure #1 - the underground market. This market is pretty crazy. It's actually underground and has electronics & clothes mostly. They sell things pretty cheap, so it's an interesting place to go. Today we got an 64 Gig flash drive/pen drive for about $5. Crazy hunh? Here's Adam and Aashini in one of the stores. They're all REALLY small stores - about 10x10 feet I would guess (but I'm really bad at guessing that sort of stuff :)) We go here a lot to get things, so I guess it's not a new adventure, but an adventure nonetheless. Before the next part of our adventure (the real part of our adventure) we stopped for lunch. Aashini will always eat at McDonalds, so that's where we went :) They just started selling chicken nuggets here at McDonalds, so it's super easy to get her to eat there :) This McDonald's had high chair

Starbucks!

 Starbucks opened in our city last night!!  I'm not a huge coffee drinker... but I was excited about the opening!!  (I think I like Starbucks because of all the green! haha!... Aashini and Diya think the mermaid on the logo looks like me... haha! Maybe it's the weird wavy hair :)... not sure :) ) Anyway, we got there and the line was SUPER long!  The wait time was about 45 minutes!!!  There were so many people there!!!  I tried to get a pic of all the people... (that's why this picture is at an annoying angle... I was trying to get it all in in between the columns :))    Here's Aashini doing a jumping picture!!  The girls tried to do a jumping picture :) haha!  haha!  They had a few spills along the way :)  I never got them both jumping :)  Stuff for sale....  OK, one more because I think they are cute :) haha!  People waiting in line :) Some friends that made it inside! :)  We decided not to wait in line... So we'll

Funny Things - Age Appropriate?

Just wondering... but who thought that putting a HUGE Super scary picture right over the playground was a good idea??  hahahaha!!!  My kids were terrified! :) haha!