Wedding recap part 1/2

I've just returned back Down Under after my wedding. A typically South Indian affair, colourful, vibrant and decidedly tiring! For the sake of internet posterity and to relive the wonderful experience, I've decided to document the proceedings, all 2.5 days of it, in detail here. For the sake of my sanity and your reading convenience, the events will be covered in two blog posts.

The arrival of the Groom's family at the wedding hall is quite a choreographed event in South Indian weddings. The Bride's family typically goes there first to set up and prepare a welcome party for the groom's family. So, my family and I gathered at my aunt's house around 7:30 am, and left for the wedding hall at 8 am in a convoy of 3 cars. When we reached the wedding hall, we were given a warm, flower-filled welcome by the Bride's family. In a moment of unintentional comedy, my brother-in-law was mistaken to be the groom by a member of the welcome party! All taken in good jest before we proceeded on to our designated rooms to get ready for the morning's rituals.

The morning was spent conducting prayers signalling the end of my bachelorhood, and wishing for good luck in my next phase of life. Good intentions, but the rituals, in my opinion, were excruciatingly long and my legs ached from having to sit cross-legged through the whole ordeal! The highlight of the event was the excitement generated when my Belgian friends made their entrance to the wedding hall with Vanilla Manosj in tow. Blond, blue-eyed and uber-cute, the little boy was an instant hit with everyone at the wedding. Once the rituals were over, we ate a hearty lunch, the first of many meals where the food served was undeniably terrific but far too much in quantity for one to eat and enjoy fully. It being the first full meal of the wedding, I was able to eat a fair bit of the dishes on offer.

The afternoon was a bit of downtime for everyone. I spent the time catching up with my extended family, taking the opportunity to have long chats with my uncles, aunts and cousins. The bride took this opportunity to take a nap in anticipation of the activities of that evening. Predictably, the crowd at the wedding hall dwindled as the local folks left to go home to refresh themselves ahead of the evening's party. The next event, that started at 6 pm, was basically a reconfirmation of our engagement ceremony, which originally took place six months ago. After a thankfully brief engagement ceremony, we were whisked away for a quick visit to the temple across the street. Then, the party began in earnest!

A fairly impressive band (Dhivyaraja Shruthi) churned out a mix of classics and latest Indian numbers from 7 - 9 pm. There was, understandably, a bit of initial hesitation among people to get on the dance floor. Thanks to Dad's enthusiastic efforts in corralling people, soon, there was a healthy number of young and older folks jiving on the dance floor. The Bride chose to change out of her self-proclaimed cumbersome (but gorgeous!) sari into a stunning pink dress, to enable her to display her full dancing repertoire. Naturally, I shed my jacket for the exercise and joined the Bride on the dance floor for good stretch of 30 odd minutes of continuous grooving! Our friends joined us for on the dance floor as well making for quite a spectacle that was captured by several avid photographers. Finally, things started calming down around 9 pm and the party was aptly concluded with spontaneous renditions by a cousin of each the bride and groom, and a Dutch song by the wonderfully talented Evemie! Truly a superb way to end a very enjoyable night and Evemie, I reckon you have a promising future in Bollywood as a playback singer if only you worked on your Hindi/Tamil. ;-)

Although I was undeniably tired by the activities of the evening in particular, I suffered horribly from insomnia that night. Luckily for me, I wasn't the only one with such a disposition and I ended up chatting with my cousin Aishu and my aunt Vidya till the wee hours of the morning. The wedding ceremonies were to officially begin at 5 am so we finally gave our tired bodies about an hour's rest to recharge for Day 2, details of which will follow in the next post!

BTW, wedding pictures will appear on this blog at some point this month, so look out for them!