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Shaadi part 1 - Wedding part 3

Wow! The titles of these posts are getting long! haha! The actual wedding night is full of stuff, so I'm going to break it up into 3 posts... so this is my 3rd wedding post, but my first of the wedding night (the Shaddi).
Here were are all geared up for the wedding!! Normally I would wear a saree for this type event, but pregnant with a saree is quite difficult and not something I wanted to wrangle, so I wore a fancy suit :) (I'll have some sorta better pics of it in another post).
This is the most exciting and fun part of the wedding week for me :) I love it! There's so much anticipation! (you can interpret that as 'waiting' too... lots of waiting :) haha!)
So, during the day the bride gets ready (as well as many other things like pujas). She spends HOURS at the beauty parlor. It's a lot of work to wear all that make-up, nail polish & jewelry and to get the outfit looking just right!
OK, so while the bride is finishing getting ready, making her way to the wedding hall & having some of her ceremonies (mentioned below) - the groom is making his way to the wedding. This is called the Barat. The groom usually rides to the wedding site on a white horse (sometimes on a horse or sometimes on a special cart pulled by the horse as seen in the pic below). He is accompanied by all his relatives, friends and family. There's usually a band or some drummers, some fancy lights and lots of celebrating. When they arrive at the venue (dancing and rejoicing), the are welcomed by the bride's family. It's pretty fun :) We missed most of this because we were there with the bride's side :) We did drive past the Barat and I quickly took a pic out of the window ;)
Here's Aashini on the stage playing with other kids while waiting for the groom (Deepansh) to arrive :)
Brides typically wear a Lehenga (or Choli). At first glance it looks a lot like a saree, but it is a separate skirt & top. Traditionally brides wore only red for their weddings, but nowadays they usually wear a color that is in that same family (orange, pink, red, maroon, etc). I really liked Jaya's. It was pink &orange and very cool!
This next ceremony is cool to me. This is the ceremony when the bride gets her toe rings. Toe rings are one of the many symbols of being married here. Here is Jay getting her toe rings (below). It's interesting because gold is VERY important and popular here. I've always wondered why toe rings are made of silver. Well, I learnd that they are made of sliver (and not gold) because the metal gold is held in high regard by H'ndus and it is believed that it is the metal of gods, so they don't think it's appropriate to wear it below the waist. Of course, in some parts of the country that is no longer true and they wear gold toe rings, but in our part of the country it's still the trend.
Jaya had 4 toe rings on each foot - it looked awesome! BUT they are hard to get on. The silver isn't easy to bend, so she didn't have the best time getting them put on :)
One of her relatives that was helping to put them on decided that since they couldn't bend them on, she was going to use her teeth - it made me laugh! I have a picture of a friend with another friend's foot her her mouth - haha!!
Jaya gets to wear really cool jewelry! Here's just some of it! The gold bangles are real gold! So cool looking!
This next part is hard to explain, but basically, they use wheat as a blessing.
The friends and family make a circle around her and she hands them a handful of wheat.
They then circle around her and throw the wheat at her.
Here's a pic of me & Jaya - I think this pic is funny! My smile is huge :) haha!
I like this picture :)
So now they get ready for the next part (this is my favorite part but you'll have to wait until the next post to hear about that).
During this time, the groom (Deepansh), Jaya's brother (Mayank) and the pundit (H'ndu priest) perform some ceremonies.
Here's Deepansh!
OK, to keep this post from being too huge, that's all for now - next post is my fave so stay tuned!!

Comments

Bri said…
sooo pretty!!!
Emily said…
Oooh you're right her lehenga and bangles are gorgeous! I love the pink. :) I'm really enjoying the shaadi posts.
Bran said…
Hey girl! You're so great communicating cultural info and helping us (and so many others) understand so much more. loving these posts. it's all so fascinating!
gloria said…
I really love this one(except you know I was worried about her teeth:) I just love her wedding dress and omgoodness, the beautiful bangles!!!lovegg

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