Picture: Let's give'em presents! This is a picture of a wedding in Hyderabad I attended while ago. All the people on stage are actually trying to give their presents to the newly-wed couple.
A friend from Malaysia of Indian decent will get married in August this year and she is so kind to share her elaborate preparations with me (thanks Rajini for explaining all to me)! As South Indian weddings are as much about the family and community as about the couple, the preparations entail astrologers as well as priests, parents and professional photographers. For the bride it is relatively simple as she only chooses her dress, the make-up, the jewellery and, together with her future husband, the rings. All the rest is organized and paid for by the two parents. For astrological reasons the wedding will take place on Friday the 31st of August. Here is what will happen:
27th of August the Nallungu ceremony will take place. The couple will separately receive the blessings by the elders in their respective parents’ houses.
On the 29th of August the engagement formalities will take place with the elders from both sides exchanging silver trays laden with fruits and the rings get exchanged. This will take place in a temple near their house. The priest will also bless the couple.
On Thursday the 30th of August the bride will leave the parent’s house to stay with her aunt until the wedding day. The wedding technically means that the girl gets given away by her family to the boy’s side. As the wedding is on a Friday and Fridays are “good” days in Hindu calendar, the bride is not supposed to leave her family on a Friday. The couple circumvents the problem in the bride returning before midnight to her aunt’s house (some couple stay in a honey-moon suite instead).
Friday the 31st of August is the actual wedding day and it will last the whole day. The bride in full Indian regalia and decorated to the max. She will be picked up by the groom’s party and taken to the wedding hall (not a temple, mind you). The bride will be blessed in a ceremony called Saangiyam and it involves a coconut which is then used by a priest in a fire ceremony. The groom will receive a separate ceremony. And finally the couple gets reunited and the groom places the Thali (a pendant similar to Western wedding rings) around the bride’s neck. She is supposed to wear the rest of her life (and no such token for the hubby though). They will also place silver toe rings on each others toes. The ceremony will be followed by a sumptuous dinner (this being Asia , I really mean sumptuous, aka loooooots of food, yummy)!
After the dinner the day is not over yet for the couple as they go to the groom’s place and do another ceremony: the milk and fruit feeding ceremony. The bride will then rush before midnight back to her aunt’s house and stay there, alone, until Saturday (remember, Friday is an auspicious day in Hinduism and no staying together then. Tough luck, buddy!).
On the 1st of September the newly-wed couple will have dinner at her place and on the following day at his place. And this is when the bride will for the first time stay at his place, for good.
A lot of ceremony, huh, so stop worrying my sissy-boys and girls about your simple western weddings!
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