Kevin and I traveled to Houston last weekend to attend the wedding of a couple of friends from college. Although the travel-to-party ratio was awful (we arrived Saturday night and left Monday morning), we had a lot of fun.
We got to see a whole bunch of people from college that we've seen only rarely or not at all since graduation. It was a lot of fun to catch up with everyone, find out who's doing what, who's engaged, and who's married. A lot of people are only a year away from finishing up PhDs and we predicted that after that there will be a bit of a baby boom among our graduating class. I guess we'll have to wait and see if that holds true.
The ceremony itself was a Hindu ceremony, which was something I'd never attended before. As such, it basically took up the entirety of Saturday. The groom's procession began at 9:30. That led into the ceremony which was followed by lunch at noon. Then we had four hours to ourselves before the reception began at 5.
The ceremony was not at all what I'd expected. For starters, I assumed that the groom's procession (scheduled to last an hour) would be a very formal affair with lots of prayer and ritual. There was some of that towards the end, but the bulk of the "procession" was actually a massive dance party in the middle of the street.
Once the bride entered, the ceremony started. And even though there was a lot of ritual and tradition, the entire thing was surprisingly informal. The priest explained what each ritual was meant to symbolize as we went along. The groom's family members cracked jokes throughout. And we had helpful programs to walk us through what was going on and what the various sanskrit words meant.
I was surprised by how much the ceremony involved the family of the bride and groom. Most Christian-based ceremonies that I've attended involve the bride and groom making promises to each other. They may ask for the family's blessing at some point, but that's the extent of their involvement.
The Hindu ceremony was very different. The groom had to make promises to the bride's father and brother. He received blessings from her mother. The bride participated in rituals with the groom's mother and married female relatives. She had to promise to share her life with her new family and not to forget about her birth family. The bride and groom shared a symbolic first meal, as did their fathers. All of this seemed to symbolize not the creation of a new family (which I'm accustomed to) but the blending of two existing families. There was also a definite sense of the bride's increased status as she became a married woman.
The ceremony also involved the bride and groom wearing more and more things as it went on. They began wearing traditional wedding garb. Then there was an exchange of flower garlands that they wore around their necks. There was a loop of cotton thread that bound them together, along with scarves that had been tied together and were draped around their necks. In addition to exchanging rings, the groom presented the bride with a necklace symbolizing her new status. And they were sprinkled with both holy water and rose petals throughout the ceremony.
The entire thing took over an hour. Afterwards, the bride told us she fought to cut the ceremony down from the original three hours. I can hardly imagine sitting through that, though I did enjoy the glimpse of Indian culture that I got. Any more and the hot Texas sun may have cooked me alive, though.
After the ceremony we were served an enormous Indian lunch. I'm not sure I could identify anything I ate, but all of it was delicious. Sadly, there was so much food I didn't have room to go back for seconds of anything. But all of it was delicious.
Once we got back to the hotel, I discovered that HBO was running the entire first season of Game of Thrones in preparation for the season two premiere later that night. I put that on, but it only took a few seconds for the marathon to turn into a two hour nap. Somehow my boyfriend managed to wake up from his own nap long enough to wake me up so that I'd have time to shower and run to Starbucks before the reception. I'm still not sure how he did that, given that he fell back asleep almost immediately.
We got to see a whole bunch of people from college that we've seen only rarely or not at all since graduation. It was a lot of fun to catch up with everyone, find out who's doing what, who's engaged, and who's married. A lot of people are only a year away from finishing up PhDs and we predicted that after that there will be a bit of a baby boom among our graduating class. I guess we'll have to wait and see if that holds true.
The ceremony itself was a Hindu ceremony, which was something I'd never attended before. As such, it basically took up the entirety of Saturday. The groom's procession began at 9:30. That led into the ceremony which was followed by lunch at noon. Then we had four hours to ourselves before the reception began at 5.
The ceremony was not at all what I'd expected. For starters, I assumed that the groom's procession (scheduled to last an hour) would be a very formal affair with lots of prayer and ritual. There was some of that towards the end, but the bulk of the "procession" was actually a massive dance party in the middle of the street.
Once the bride entered, the ceremony started. And even though there was a lot of ritual and tradition, the entire thing was surprisingly informal. The priest explained what each ritual was meant to symbolize as we went along. The groom's family members cracked jokes throughout. And we had helpful programs to walk us through what was going on and what the various sanskrit words meant.
I was surprised by how much the ceremony involved the family of the bride and groom. Most Christian-based ceremonies that I've attended involve the bride and groom making promises to each other. They may ask for the family's blessing at some point, but that's the extent of their involvement.
The Hindu ceremony was very different. The groom had to make promises to the bride's father and brother. He received blessings from her mother. The bride participated in rituals with the groom's mother and married female relatives. She had to promise to share her life with her new family and not to forget about her birth family. The bride and groom shared a symbolic first meal, as did their fathers. All of this seemed to symbolize not the creation of a new family (which I'm accustomed to) but the blending of two existing families. There was also a definite sense of the bride's increased status as she became a married woman.
The ceremony also involved the bride and groom wearing more and more things as it went on. They began wearing traditional wedding garb. Then there was an exchange of flower garlands that they wore around their necks. There was a loop of cotton thread that bound them together, along with scarves that had been tied together and were draped around their necks. In addition to exchanging rings, the groom presented the bride with a necklace symbolizing her new status. And they were sprinkled with both holy water and rose petals throughout the ceremony.
The entire thing took over an hour. Afterwards, the bride told us she fought to cut the ceremony down from the original three hours. I can hardly imagine sitting through that, though I did enjoy the glimpse of Indian culture that I got. Any more and the hot Texas sun may have cooked me alive, though.
After the ceremony we were served an enormous Indian lunch. I'm not sure I could identify anything I ate, but all of it was delicious. Sadly, there was so much food I didn't have room to go back for seconds of anything. But all of it was delicious.
Once we got back to the hotel, I discovered that HBO was running the entire first season of Game of Thrones in preparation for the season two premiere later that night. I put that on, but it only took a few seconds for the marathon to turn into a two hour nap. Somehow my boyfriend managed to wake up from his own nap long enough to wake me up so that I'd have time to shower and run to Starbucks before the reception. I'm still not sure how he did that, given that he fell back asleep almost immediately.
The reception was more typical of other weddings I've attended. There was booze and lots of good food. Speeches by the parents and friends. And lots of dancing. We didn't stay for the entire evening, since we had to get up pretty early the next morning to catch our flight home. But it was fun to hang out with all the people we hadn't seen since college.
Sounds like it was a great experience! Very happy for them :)
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