As most of you probably know by now I recently got married! And if you don’t know well then you clearly did not follow me on Facebook, Insta, Twitter, Pinterest where I shared every detail about my wedding. Just kidding. Given my absence from social media, unless I spoke to you on the phone or texted you, you probably had no clue that my online dating profile suddenly went dark courtesy of my change in status from single to married.
Now that I have actual experience of planning (kinda) and getting married, I have now become an expert on all things Indian wedding related. And as the expert it is time for me to dispel perceptions that non-Indians or Indian for that matter have about Indian weddings and what they entail.
When most people think of Indian weddings the words that come to mind are: big, colorful, lots of singing and dancing, groom arriving on a horse, bright outfits, wedding that lasts several days. While this is true for the most part there are a lot of nuances to Indian weddings depending on the region, state, and sub-culture. What most people don’t realize is that Indian culture differs from state to state and from one sub-culture to the next. And this has an impact on the wedding traditions, rituals, and style of celebration.
However, I do feel that that Indian weddings have almost a theatrical nature to them and are quite lavish these days. Weddings are a way for families to showcase their wealth and make a statement in the community. With rising incomes families can more easily pull off a wedding with all the bells and whistles.
My husband and I are both from the state of Maharashtra, which is located in the West-Central region of India. Through my research I learned that Marathi (the name for my people) weddings are one of the most simple and least lavish of all the Indian weddings. Pre-wedding, wedding, and post-wedding rituals have a spiritual and religious significance to them and are steeped in Maharashtrian culture. You won’t find Marathi people signing and dancing for no reason.
While my wedding was big in the sense that we had a lot of guests (can’t avoid that with Indian families and mentality) and wedding related events spanned over a few days, all the other celebrations included only close family and friends. I’m not a big fan of being in the spotlight and by keeping the guest list small, it made the events more fun and less stressful for me.
With that said, to give you guys a more realistic idea of what a Marathi Indian wedding looks like here’s what we did at mine.
- Invite the family God to the wedding (T-2 weeks). Each family in India has a designated God or Goddess. Our custom is to personally invite the family God to the wedding. Our family Goddness is located in the coastal region of Maharashtra in a remote village called Kadapa. I love visiting the temple in the countryside where the Goddness resides. The countryside is green, beautiful and lined with rice paddies after the monsoon season or Mango trees in May. Going there is a reprieve from the honking noises, the pollution, and the congestion of the city.
- Engagement ceremony (T-1 week). At the ceremony not only did we exchange rings in front of people (yes that happened and was kinda embarrassing) but we first did a small puja for Lord Ganesh who is the God of Wisdom and Remover of Obstacles. During the puja you offer the God food, flowers, gifts, and ask for his blessing.
- Lord Ganesh Puja (T-4 days). We did a puja at home for Lord Ganesh and other family of Gods to ask for their blessings for a happy and healthy future for the bride and groom.
- Mehendi ceremony (T-2 days). Made out of the henna plant, mehendi is used to decorate the bride’s (and grooms) hands and feet. Not only is this done for cosmetic reasons but henna helps to cool down the body and is supposed to symbolize calming the bride’s nerves before the big day. In that case henna should be a staple in life. We had set up a tent or mandap in our backyard and all my aunts and cousins had their hands decorated with henna. I loved that the small scale made the event intimate and cozy. It took me 4 hours to get henna applied to both my hands and feet. 4 hours!!! And I had to leave it on overnight. Things you gotz to do look beautiful.
- Haldi (turmeric) ceremony (T-1 day). Turmeric is known for its anti-inflammatory and healing properties and what better way to ensure that the bride is all healthy and beautiful for her wedding day than to apply haldi paste to her body? Again the haldi ceremony was a low key affair with close family and friends — just the way I like it.
- Wedding Day!!! The actual wedding ceremony is filled with my rituals and pujas all to bless the bride and groom and their families. I’m not even going to attempt to describe the rituals that took place because that would mean googling “what happens at an actual Indian wedding ceremony.” The wedding was a blur and surprisingly was over really quickly. The main parts of the wedding included exchanging flower garlands (after singing the vows during which the bride and groom are separated by a cloth), my (now) husband gave me a necklace called mangalsutra, to symbolizes his love, respect, promise to take care of me, and lastly we walked around a fire reciting our vows and promising to spend our lifetimes together.
Marathi weddings do not have the signing and dancing element that most North Indian weddings are famous for and they take place during the day. On the other hand, Punjabi weddings start at night at like 1 am! Can you imagine??? At 1am I’m in REM sleep. However, these days many rituals and traditions from one region are adopted by another and with many inter-cultural marriages, rituals are blended to accommodate varying customs.
I wanted to respect my Marathi culture without going overboard and keeping in mind that while the wedding day is important, it is just one day. What is more important to me is having a healthy and happy marriage over putting together a perfect wedding day with all the pomp and circumstance. While I would have loved a more cozy crowd at the wedding, I lost that battle early on. Nevertheless, organizing the logistics of the wedding was stressful, especially since we don’t live in India but surprisingly my anxiety levels were in check.
So next time you go to an Indian wedding look beyond the singing and dancing and cute outfits. Pay attention to the rituals, customs, and try to appreciate the differences that make Indian wedding special.