The Wedding Reception

I am not entirely clear on the traditions and beliefs that govern weddings and marriage, but one thing that I have gleaned is that the timing of the ceremony is important. The ceremony must take place at a dates and time are deemed to be ‘auspicious’, to wed at an inauspicious time is to court disaster. The auspiciousness of a certain date and time is determined by astrologers.

So the ceremony was to begin at 4.30 am on Sunday. For this reason, the reception was held on Saturday evening. I had heard that and Indian wedding is a large event, with many hundreds of people likely to be in attendance, and so there were. I am amazed that the bride and groom can possibly know this many people, but they are there nonetheless.

We had actually visited the wedding hall earlier in the day for lunch, as friends of Prakash we were more than welcome. Unfortunately for me that meant trying in vain to eat rice with my right hand whilst a small crowd gathered to watch the spectacle. J I don’t think that I did too badly, but it’s a lot harder than people make it look.

As we arrived at the venue, under the tunnel of lights and streamers, Prakash and his bride were standing on a platform by the entrance to the hall. There they are subjected to some very bright lights whilst pictures are taken with all the families and guests at the wedding. We were invited onto the platform to pose for some pictures, crikey it’s hot under those lights.

Something that I noticed after our pictures were taken was that everyone else had a very serious straight faced expression. Not me though, I’m the idiot with the big smile standing amongst all the serious people :)

Whilst we went into the hall to enjoy the wedding feast, the bride and groom remained on their platform and posed with many hundreds more people. I was thoroughly impressed that neither of them fainted from the heat, they were there for several hours.

The hall were the food is served had long lines of tables, where a very efficient system of waiters and ushers guided us to recently vacated seats, placed banana leaves on the tables, and served the multitude of different foods that comprise the feast. I can’t begin to remember the different foods that were served, but they ranged from the hot and spicy to cool and cleansing, sour, sweet, crispy, chewy nutty and bready. Finishing with ice-cream. For a short while a man stood right in front of me, staring intently at me eating. He kept calling waiters over to top up my banana leaf and glass. Thankfully my companions managed to persuade them that I had enough food, and that no-one should listen to the drunk man.

After the meal we sat outside in the courtyard, and chatted whilst Prakash continued to be photoed. We said our goodbyes and went to get some sleep before getting up early the next morning for the ceremony.