Contrasts of Indian Wedding Celebration

By siliconindia  |  Wednesday, 04 May 2022, 12:37:09 PM IST

Without exaggeration, a wedding can be called the most grandiose and important event in the Indian life. This event lasts for several days and shows the India life in miniature. There is a place for joy, grief, and a broken heart at the same time. To hold a traditional wedding on a grand scale and with all the rituals for hundreds of relatives, the bride and groom parents are ready to spend large sums, often borrowed. Every day wedding photographers in Mumbai are looking for new ways to tell wedding stories, capture the festive atmosphere, where the sun always shines, and the mystical component of Indian wedding traditions.

Family event

In India, a wedding is a family event rather than a holiday for those who get married. This is an occasion for parents and grandparents to show their power and status, so they invite absolutely everyone. And such invitations are taken very seriously — people are ready to cross oceans just to be present at the celebration; and all these guests need to be properly fed and entertained. A wedding is perhaps the most high-profile event in the life of a single family, so a young father begins to postpone it from the moment he finds out that he will have a daughter.

Marriages in India are still most often arranged not for love, but by agreement. This means that the decision is made by the elders — father, brothers, uncles. Husband and wife may not even see each other before the wedding. When choosing a bride and groom, their origin, level of wealth, as well as astrological compatibility are taken into account. Astrologers draw up a map of spouses, according to which they look at:

  • what kind of their character;
  • how many children they will have;
  • what is the life expectancy and future illnesses of the wife and husband;
  • the possibility of infidelity and much more.

Although in modern India the rules have become less strict, so relatives take into account the opinion of the newlyweds, and also allow them to meet under adult's control before the wedding, personal sympathy still does not matter much.

Wedding preparations

A distinctive feature of weddings in India is the splendor of the solemn procession and the observance of many rituals. The incredibly beautiful wedding vestments — a colorful sari for the bride, a turban, a sherwani jacket and churidar trousers for the groom cannot be replaced with the usual lush snow-white dress and a classic suit.

Dowry

Traditionally, the bride's family prepares a dowry and gives it to the groom so that the newlyweds have everything they need for life until they get established. These are dishes, jewelry and clothes. It is also important to decorate the bride as beautiful as possible, so the groom's relatives give she gold jewelry and sari for the wedding. This goes back to the understanding that the bride is a representative of the goddess of prosperity Lakshmi. And if you treat her well, prosperity enters the house together with the daughter-in-law.

Preliminary rites

Various auspicious rites precede the wedding ceremony. They take place separately in the groom's and bride's houses. Especially striking is the ritual when the groom takes the bride from her father's house. The bride dips her palms in turmeric and leaves traces on the walls of her parents' house and the faces of her relatives. At the same time, everyone is filled with sincere tears. Such a farewell can last for several hours, and the bride's crying does not stop all this time. The fact is that a girl who has never left home alone is very much attached to her parents. Moreover, in the following customs of Indian families, the daughter is treated with great respect and care, like a goddess. With marriage, her carefree life ends. She moves into a new large family, where she will have to live together with other relatives of her husband, mother-in-law, father-in-law, and so on. And in her husband's house she is no longer a goddess, but a servant. If everyone in her father's house served her, now she herself must serve and please everyone. Therefore, you can understand the fear that a girl experiences with a change in her life.

Decoration and jewelry

Great importance is attached to the decoration for the newlywed. Traditionally, the bride makes up her eyes with black antimony, puts favorable patterns and lines on her hands and puts on 16 ornaments. Such as earrings in the ears and nose, hand and anklets, tika, rings on the toes and others. And also decorates the hair with flowers.

Another great tradition is mehendi, which is the application of henna patterns. Usually the bride's hands are decorated with complex drawings that mean strong feelings, and the shade that appears, yellow, brick or black, predicts further family life. The clothes on the newlyweds should be new. The bride's sari is usually red, gold or shiny. The groom wears all white.

The room is also decorated, it can be a wedding tent pandal, an altar room in a temple, the roof of a house or just someone's apartment. They hang garlands of fresh flowers, mango leaves, which symbolize fertility, put vases with fragrant flowers, pots with banana trees, symbolizing prosperity, lay out coconuts and other green plants, set up colored flags, light incense and lamps with melted butter.

During the ceremony, a large number of flower petals are used to sprinkle them on the newlyweds, flower garlands are also needed for the young, the priest, relatives.

 

 

ON THE DECK

siliconindia