Indian Wedding Festivities

A couple of weeks ago, we got to attend our first Indian wedding here! Nikita, one of the girls who works at a jute shop that Kyle works with a lot, invited us to come with her to the wedding of one of her best friends. Well, technically I think Nikita mentioned something about it and Kyle asked if we could come. Same same. Nikita brought us the official wedding invitation a few days later, which was the first time I met her. Landon & Layla liked her immediately because she brought them huge boxes of chocolates!

The next day Nikita took me shopping to buy sarees for the wedding. Let me tell you, I am SO thankful that I had her with me and wasn't trying to pick out a saree on my own, because I would have been so lost and overwhelmed I probably would have cried. And gotten very ripped off :)

Here are a couple of pictures from saree shopping of reject sarees I tried on but didn't choose.

Saree shopping is fun! They are so beautiful.

The next day Kyle took part of our date night to go shopping to buy his traditional Indian kurta outfit to wear to the morning ceremony.

 We were texting pictures to Nikita to make sure we had her approval on his outfit.

 I told Kyle I wished his shoes were in my size because I'd like to wear them after he was done with them. He didn't think that was very funny.

My jewelry I picked out at the market to go with my morning saree (yes, I got to buy 2 sarees. What girl doesn't want to do that?!)

Here's my saree for the morning ceremony! It wasn't as fancy (or "heavy" as they say) since it was the traditional ceremony, and then the evening reception gets more bling-ed out.

The saree actually has more of a greenish tint to the turquoise than the pictures look. I looooooved the colors in this saree! And in case you're wondering, no I didn't drape the saree myself. I went next door to my neighbor and it took her 40 minutes to get me properly arranged.

We got ourselves and the kids all dressed up and caught a taxi to the location since we didn't know whether there would be parking or not.

Landon and Layla look thrilled to be going

 Because Nikita is BFFs with the bride, we got to go to the pre-ceremony ceremonial traditions with just a handful of close friends and family. We were all in this little room surrounding the bride and groom sitting on a couch (they had already been up for hours getting dressed up). I have no idea what all went on, but people hand fed us (and each other) a lot of traditional sweets, the best friends of the bride stole the groom's shoes and were paid a ransom to get them back, and untied a string his parents had tied into his hair that morning and then tied it onto the bride's hair.

 Can you spot the groom buried beneath all those people?

 Unfortunately the best pic of the bride I got that morning. Not sure about you, but I would have been a little overwhelmed having so many people crowded around me. She looked BEAUTIFUL though.

Doing a little touch up work on the hair and makeup :)

While all these little rituals were going on, people were milling around chatting and taking lots of pictures with each other (and a lot of pics of Landon & Layla).

Nikita, my Indian bestie, and me

So glad we got to be Nikita's guests!

After all that was done, we hopped in cars and drove to the location of the actual wedding ceremony. We got there and because it was a Hindu religious ceremony, we had to take our shoes off and cover our heads. My saree draped over my head but we didn't have anything for Kyle, so he had to borrow an old lady's floral handkerchief. Oops. Mental note for next time.

 The bride and groom are sitting on the ground kinda in the middle of the two posts in front of the little puja altar thing. Of course we didn't understand anything they were saying, but it was really interesting to watch.

 Even though Nikita's bestie was getting married she still had time to check her phone ;)

The kids did amazingly well considering we were asking them to sit still in a room full of strangers and commotion. They were definitely excited to leave though!

All the other guests stayed awhile longer but we took the kids home for some cups of juice and naps.

 Landon was such a stud in his traditional outfit. Perfect that the girls gave these to the kids as Christmas presents!!

My little Indian boy :)

We had a few hours of rest and then it was time to get ready for the reception. We were not about to take the kids to the reception so Chase and Collin came over to stay with them, which was fine since they went to bed about 30 minutes after we left. 

With Indian weddings, they have a whole different outfit for each individual component of the wedding (depending on the specific region/language group they come from, wedding celebrations can last for 4-7 days! This was a Cindi ceremony and so was just the ceremony and reception in the same day). That afternoon while we were resting the bride went back to the salon and got all done up again with a different hairstyle and makeup and outfit for the night. That meant I got a costume change as well!

The evening gown saree

While much fancier than my morning saree, mine was nothing compared to how "heavy" the majority of everyone else's were! Talk about bedazzled!

Nikita told us to meet her back at the original place at 8 p.m., which we did, and Kyle stood in the hallway and talked to random guys while I went in the room where Nikita, another best friend Kushboo, the bride's mother and several other ladies were all getting dressed and ready...for another hour! It was hilarious. They primped and reprimped and Nikita added some blue eyeshadow and thicker eyeliner to my eyes because my makeup wasn't dark enough :)  It was really fun.

Me and Kushboo, who I also love

Nikita in her beautiful costume change :)

Kyle borrowed some random guy's Indian style suit jacket. Ha.

The reception was a lot like an American wedding reception - lots of food, people milling around talking, and the bride & groom even fed each other cake! They also had these awesome thrones to sit on up on stage. Why didn't we have thrones?!

The reception hall

The bride in her new outfit. I'm telling you, this girl was GORGEOUS

 The next day happened to be Nikita's boyfriend's birthday, so she had brought a cake for Manosh and had him cut it at 11:30 p.m. (he had to be back home by midnight so his parents could celebrate with him).

The night was very fun - I even went up on stage to the dance floor with Nikita and her posse and attempted to "Indian dance" while feeling super self-conscious...it was such a great experience though. We were also out past midnight which is so late for this old 30-year-old mom. 

At the end of the night I told Kyle we should marry each other again but have an Indian style wedding so I could wear all the fun clothes. Maybe for our 10 year anniversary?

Oh well, till then I'll just look for another wedding to crash so I can get dressed up again.