Our Big Fat Indian Wedding Experience

So it's been a few months now, but I wanted to document all the festivities from the Indian wedding that we attended back at the end of November!

The wedding was for Ankita, my closest friend here in India. Her family has truly adopted our family in every sense since we've been here! They've made our experience in India exponentially more valuable (and tasty...veg Punjabi Indian food is by far the best Indian food ever). 

So the wedding was actually a destination wedding at a resort that her dad visits frequently. Jessie, one of Kyle's coworkers, was kind enough to go with us to be our "nanny" for a few days and give us much needed help with the kids! The wedding events all pretty much took place either 1) during the kids' afternoon nap or 2) late late at night! We would not have survived without Jessie!

We flew down on a Tuesday morning and ate lunch at the resort and then relaxed until the evening party after the kids went to bed. The theme was "red carpet gala" so we dressed in nice Western wear (meaning American and not ethnic Indian wear...not to be confused with Cowboy western wear).

All dressed up with my favorite date

 Our friends Chase & Laura are also good friends with Ankita and her family, so they came to the wedding too. I'm so glad we had some partners in crime (and sneaking out early from late night events to go to bed, ha ha)!

 The party that night was pretty low key, especially since Kyle and I completely skipped the dance party. We sent Chase and Laura as our representatives and we went to be instead, ha!

Wednesday morning was the mehindi ceremony. ALL of the women attending the wedding get mehindi designs painted on their hands. I'm sure there's some meaning and significance to this tradition, but I don't know what it is. It was a fun experience, but very hard to not touch anything while it dried. 

They do amazing work!

 Wednesday evening was the sangeet ceremony. This is a tradition I totally think Americans should adopt ;)  Essentially, all of the family and closest friends of the bride and groom are assigned different dance performances that are interwoven into a scripted (and comical) telling of the couple's love story. Ankita's brother Arjun, and Tushar's sister were the emcees of the night, retelling Ankita and Tushar's love story. Of course it was all in Hindi, so we didn't understand anything about what was going on! Each of the mini dance sequences include different family members and friends, and each one is choreographed by a professional choreographer. Because we are a part of Ankita's "family," that meant we had to perform one of the dance sequences! Talk about pressure! Kyle and me, and Chase and Laura performed a dance together, but thankfully it was only about a minute long. We practiced hard to make sure we would make Ankita proud, and she said we did fantastic.  Pretty sure they would think white people doing Bollywood dance was fantastic regardless of whether we totally messed it up or not, but we'll take it :)

Here are pictures from the sangeet night!

With my sweet little Indians :)

 The outfits that Laura and I wore this night are called anarkali suits. It's like a long dress with matching leggings and a long matching "scarf" called a dupatta. Even Layla had a little anarkali suit!

We asked a lady working at the resort to take a picture of Laura and me...apparently she wanted to include Layla in the pic, lol

 Our little family (minus sleeping Mason). The sangeet didn't start until really late (read: we arrived when we were told to at 8:30, and we were absurdly early. The actual dinner and event didn't start until probably 10:30). We kept Landon and Layla up for the dinner and to watch the sangeet performances, and then once the official program was over we took them back to our room and put them in bed (where Jessie was sitting with already sleeping Mason!). Then Kyle and I had to go back and eat more dinner and then there was yet another late night dance party that we couldn't get out of for a second time, ha. It was a late late night for us old people!

Here's our full performance, for your viewing pleasure (and laughter).

With the beautiful bride

Thursday morning they had separate ceremonies going on for the bride and groom. I have no idea what Tushar's ceremony was since we were with Ankita. For the bride, they did a haldi ceremony - all of her family members take turns smearing turmeric paste on her feet, knees, hands, shoulders, and forehead and pray blessings over her (extended family is all considered close family...and apparently we were also supposed to participate, but we weren't sure, so we just sat and watched. Oops). This took quite awhile since there were so many people. I don't know what the meaning is of holding the red scarf above her head - there was something tied inside of it, but I'm sure it was important. Apparently in the haldi ceremony is when she officially leaves her family and is no longer a part of her family. So that meaning, combined with the blessings of all of her family members, meant Ankita was crying the whole time, which meant I was fighting back tears the whole time! It was so emotional!

Ankita's dad giving his blessing - so many tears!!

Thursday afternoon was pretty low key because everyone was spending hours getting ready for the main event that night! Thursday night was the main reception, followed by the official marriage ceremony (they had the reception first because the ceremony didn't start until 1 a.m. - the date and timing of the ceremony is determined by astrologers as to when is an auspicious time to get married). So we arrived at the time we were told it would start (once again, ridiculously early, like, 2 hours early). Gave us plenty of time to take pictures! 

Dressed up in our fancy sarees

He's my favorite

 Thankfully they started serving some appetizers about an hour after we had arrived. 

 We recycled Landon and Layla's outfits from Chase & Laura's wedding!

 Landon was in LOVE with all the special fruity drinks (obviously non alcoholic). Our juice addict was in heaven. 

We had lots of time for silliness!

 Eventually Tushar rode in on a white horse (yes really) and there were all sorts of other traditional things going on that we didn't fully understand. I don't have any pics of that, unfortunately, because I was sitting back at our table with Layla to not lose our seats :)  Eventually Tushar came over and stood up on their little mini stage, and then Ankita made her grand entrance. Her brothers all carried a hanging over her head as she slowly walked over to the stage (once again, later found out she thought Kyle was going to help carry it, and we didn't realize that, oops again). It was actually a really emotional entrance!

Tushar then helped Ankita up on stage and they placed the traditional huge floral necklaces over each other's neck, and then they stood there for the longest, most perfect photo op ever. There were fireworks going off, rose petals being blown up over their heads, spotlights - it was like a movie!

 After their fireworks and pictures, they went off the stage and went up to the front where there was a big display and two thrones for them to sit on so people could come take pictures with them. They also started the dinner buffet, so we went and ate some food, then took Landon and Layla back to bed (where Jessie was once again waiting with sleeping Mason). Then we came back and took pictures with them, ate more food, and waited around until the ceremony started. 

Heading over to the gazebo for the ceremony

 When the ceremony started, there was actually a chunk at the beginning that was just Tushar and Ankita's parents in with the priest, so Ankita waited out in the courtyard. Thankfully, we got to sit at the table and just chat with her for about a half hour while she waited for her part of the ceremony to start. I'll always treasure those few final concentrated minutes with her, since we didn't see her again afterwards!

Beautiful, beautiful bride

 The ceremony itself was apparently very long. Most of the guests of the wedding don't actually attend the ceremony, probably because it's so late at night and so long. Pretty much just their families were there. We stayed to watch about 20 minutes of it, and then we snuck away to go to bed since it was already 2 a.m.! Ankita later told us it lasted until about 3:30. Ugh. 

The next morning we packed up and flew back home! Landon and Layla were exhausted, but they did so incredibly well considering how late they stayed up multiple nights in a row!

 Tushar works in New York City, so Ankita is now living in America, which is just so ironic! We're hoping to visit her sometime after we're back in America. 

It was such a fun and unforgettable experience. We feel so blessed to be a part of their family, and to have been invited to experience the wedding in such a close up view. It will always be a treasured memory!