Indian Weddings Are a LOT! (day 1 - Mehendi)

And the wedding festivities begin!

Day 1, 1st event: Mehendi

Monday, January 15th

We woke up Monday morning ready to stop being tourists and morph into wedding guests. Mary and I said goodbye to our trusty driver Pradeep, whose last lift involved transfering us across Jaipur to the wedding hotel. We counted and recounted our 500-rupee bills (about 5 dollars) to make sure our tip was appropriate for so many days of safe (and relatively beep-less) driving on the insanity of Indian roads. 

We joined family members and friends of the bride and groom, Emily and Sarral, at Grand Uniara hotel.

Attacking wrinkles on our first outfits, we caught up with our sister Kathy, mother of the bride, and prepared for mehendi (or mehndi), the first of 5+ wedding events planned over two days.

The hotel decorations were quite colorful. At about quarter to one, we heard the drums start up, calling us to the event and stirring up excitement.

This sort of throne was set up for the bride and groom, but luckily they weren't required to sit there the whole time. Emily's red dress was so pretty!

Mother of the bride gets her henna tattoo.

The henna artists started working on hands immediately, beginning with some of the women who knew their way around a mehendi, and especially the bride and mothers of the groom and bride. Eventually it was time for us maasis, the aunts who are sisters of the mother of the bride.

Our palms were painted first, then we had to try not to touch anything for at least 15 minutes while the henna paste dried. Later we returned to get the backs of our hands done. The aunties said if we didn't get henna on both sides, it would look unfinished.

The women from Sarral's side were so kind and friendly to us, but sadly Mary and I weren't prepared to converse in Hindi. I was sorry that we couldn't get to know some of the aunties better because of the language barrier. We did a lot of smiling and nodding and feeling inadequate. Many of the guests did speak English and were happy to clue us in when we didn't know what was happening.

The bride's henna was especially ornate.

Forgive me for throwing in lots of family pics for the book Mary and I plan to print from this blog.

Here's our niece Emily with her new mother-in-law and us sisters.

Fathers of the groom (left) and bride (right), and some of the aunties getting their henna.

Henna lineup. Aren't the sarees beautiful?

Sarral with his Granny. Yes, men can get henna, too!

Like Phil did.

This groom is one cool dude.

With Kaley and Phil (bride's brother)

Sisters

Sarral and his older brother Sopan.

Suddenly the drums started up again and dancing broke out. We were getting our first taste of a real Indian wedding celebration.

Fathers

Sarah (bride's sister) and Cort. I think Sarah is holding a cup of lassi, a delicious yogurt drink. This is about the time we found out it would be a dry wedding 😮

There's this thing the Indian relatives did at the wedding events where they'd wave cash around in a circle over someone's head.  We couldn't entirely figure out how it worked. We assumed most of the money was going to the bridal couple, but in this case it looks like the drummers are getting some recognition from Sopan, "the founder of the feast."

Sopan's family

The dancing went on for a looong time, and almost everyone joined in. I wish I had more pictures but don't worry - there's plenty more dancing to come.

Following lunch, everyone wandered off to change outfits and get ready for Sangeet in the evening. And the wedding festivities were just getting started!

- Christine