A Punjabi Wedding

So what does a big fat Indian wedding look like?

Last weekend I was invited to the wedding of Radhika and Javin, who are friends of my friends here. I met Radhika during my first week in Mumbai and she invited me! I was so excited and also curious to experience my first Indian wedding!

The festivities started on Friday, with a gathering of friends at Radhikas home. We sang songs, played games and had good food!

 

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On Saturday was the first proper event: in the evening everyone was invited for a cocktail-evening. Around 9pm we met at the club Barrel & Co.. The entrance of this club was already beautiful, with lights and stairs: a beautiful spot for photos!

Inside you can imagine a high-class club atmosphere. For wedding guests the bar and food was open, we could have cocktails, mocktails, homemade applecidre as much as we wanted!

We danced a lot!

Snacks and drinks were served constantly. But I had to make sure not to eat too much snacks, because as I know by now: there is always a biiiig meal after the snacks… People here eat dinner only around 11:30 pm…

So by the time dinner was served we were all in a pretty good mood already:) the food was great, there was traditional rice, dhal, and other sauces but also pizza.

After dinner there were even 3 different types of dessert!

 

After some more dancing we finally made our way home around 3am.

 

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On Sunday we had to get up early again, at 9 am we met at Radhikas place again for the event called Mehndi. That means ‘Henna’. And it means that the bride, her mother and the closest friends get very special and big henna tattoos on hands, arms and feet done. Of course there was again a lot of great food for breakfast, as well as chai.

 

 

I couldn’t believe that I ate so much food that day!!! Because after around 4 hours of henna, eating, playing games and singing songs we went to a temple to eat again! There was a big Buffett of traditional foods, it was so great, I couldn’t even decide what to take!!!

 

 

But after all this food and the short night I was so tired that I went home to take a two hour nap, before the next big event in the evening!

So in the evening the Mehndi-day continued at a place called the Club.

Here all the guests who wanted could get professional Henna-Tattoos. So did I! And it turned out so beautiful… Even days later I still got compliments for the mehndi.

Again there were also lots of snacks and drinks. But my highlight, apart from the mehndi was all the dancing!! It was simply so much fun and the energy in the room was amazing!

 

Outside, on the terrace there was again a huge Buffett with food and deserts. But how do we eat if we have mehendi on our hands?! At some point I just had to wash off the paste…

After the dinner we left relatively early (it must have been shortly past midnight).

 

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On the next day, which was a Monday, neither Anjali nor I went to school, instead we attended the Haldi at Radhikas house again. This celebration was about the tumeric, which traditionally gets put on the bride’s skin. Being a witness to this event felt very special, as there was a priest, there were prayers and singing. The guests were involved as well (it was a smaller crowd in the morning than during the evening -events): we gave money to the bride, drank blessed milk and also put the tumeric-paste on the bride as well as on ourselves. The bride got special jwelery which she then had to ‘break’ above the heads of people who were single. If something fell, then that means that person will get married soon. I also got lucky and got a small part of her jewlery, let’s seey I’m curious what happens 😉

After this event we took another break at home, I was extremely tired and just needed some rest in between all those festivities!!

At 4pm was the actual wedding celebration: the moment when bride and groom meet and when they give each other the promise. Again there were lots of snacks and extremely attentive waitresses at the location!

The ceremony itself was very special again. The priest sang with his beautiful voice and blessed the couple. The guests threw flower-leaves towards the couple for good wishes. The celebration was very different than any wedding I’ve seen before. But it was so beautiful!

During the event the brides girlfriends had to steal the groom’s shoes, and at the end, when he asked for his shoes, all the girls asked him for a lot of money to give his shoes back. The money was shared between the girls in the end.

After all of this, the bride, groom and many others changed outfits for the evening -event which was the reception.

At the reception it’s basically time for everyone to  greet the couple, give the gifts and congratulations.

 

Throughout the whole weekend there were two professional videographers as well as photographers present who filmed and photographed every moment of the wedding. I am So curious to see those photos!

Some close friends were asked to give an interview on Radhika and Javin, how they met and what kind of wishes they have for them. These interviews will also be a part of the wedding-video.

My conclusion on the first experience of an Indian wedding is: it is simply beautiful!!! Every day and every moment was very special. The next two weddings I will attend will be very different than this one, as this was a Punjabi wedding.

Punjab is a state in northern India, which means it’s a very different culture again than here in Mumbai, which is in the state Maharashtra.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S.: I apologize for any spelling mistakes you might find… I wrote this post on my phone, but if I take too much time to edit these blog entries there won’t be any entries anymore. The days here are simply too short to get all the things done that I would like to do!!!

With love from Mumbai! <3