Day 3- The Wedding!

(The one thing we Malaysians may have with people in India is we are late all the time! Tee hee!)
(This is us rushing to get to the Wedding. Held at the Army Institute in Juhu.)

Today is the wedding! Groom was feeling apprehensive as this is the last day of his singledom...hey women go through it too ok mate. heh heh heh....the groom is a lovely kind person let me put it on record.

After lunch we went back to our place and got ready . Nadine is her dad's daughter in that she takes sooooo long to get ready. I have NO IDEA what she does in the bathroom that takes THAT Long!! I saw M and her daughter get ready and they were held not by the shower, but by the lengthy process of putting on their elaborate costumes !

Nadine and I were wearing our outfits which we had worn for Lana's wedding- hey fancy enuff whaaaaat. When we arrived at auntie's house everyone was still getting ready. Women had their hair adorned with jasmine and their hands and arms decorated with gold jewelry ..I so can live here, heh heh.. I did not feel out of place,even though not in saree, because I think we are such a multicultural place back home, its normal to be surrounded by lovely sarees when you yourself are in a baju kurung.

The groom's car went on ahead first. (nicely decorated by the groom's SuperSister!)

The Wedding cannot be held late, as, (I was informed) that the good time to get bride and groom married was between 6 to 7. In fact the time on the card said 6.10 pm.

We arrived at the grounds where the wedding was to be held, following the Groom’s car. There were chairs, lights and buffet stalls circling the area. There was a stage at the end of the garden which was covered with gerberas and orchids and some white flowers I do not know the name to. A priest was already sitting there. There were musicians in the background.

When we arrived, the groom's party was stopped at the entrance. The bride's party greeted him and performed a small ceremony with him , before N and hubby escorted him to the stage. I would say that the groom was greeted "traditionally "by the Bride’s side- (which means I don’t actually know what they did except a lot of beautifully dressed people surrounded him(heh heh), then he headed to the stage and the waiting priest. ( Sounds very much like MY wedding where the kadhi was also kept waiting heh heh) .

Bride was not around at this stage. The groom was led on to the stage by his brother in law the lovely Dr S, (N's husband).

Later she arrived in all her finery (and they were fine yessireeee!!), escorted by her party. As I was rudely stepping in front of people taking pictures (sorry Aka and Ana) I heard this loud sound which was actually the sound of trumpet which blew periodically throughout the ceremony and to announce a critical stage of the ceremony.

(nadine asked them if she could take their pic and they posed for her- how nice!)

The ceremony lasted about one hour (?) – The parents of both sides were also on the stage together with N and her husband- apparently N has to lead the Bride and the husband has to lead the Groom around the fire(small fire only) When the groom ties the “mangal sutera” to the bride (ie a necklace) they then are officially married- awwwwwww..I was told that you do not take off that necklace as long as you are married.

At one point we left the grounds as M had a headache , to look for paracetamol as well as the loo. At the other side of the loo was a part of the grounds where quite a number of ppl were playing what looked very much like BINGO! Strange , don’t they know that a wedding was going on???

Coming back from the loo Nadine decided that enough was enough, it was time to eat. It was vegetarian buffet - She got her own plate and went to all the stalls – I pinched from her plate, and waited with the others to eat with the bride and groom. Meja pengantin lah basically. Unlike our wedding, ppl do not eat first and then greet the bride and groom. Here they line up to greet the couple first. Then eat. The bride and groom and their family would stand in a line and be congratulated by the guests. Guests kept on coming !

At long last M and I decided that we should also join the line of well wishers., so we did. Halfway through us going “well done etc” , we got sort of ignored and groom and N started to talk over our heads. There were commotion as the guy behind us was Kunal Kapoor the actor and Suzanne Khan the wife of Mr Roshan.(she is the one in orange saree)

Of course I had no idea who these ppl were (except who has not heard of Hritik Roshan??) but I thought I’d take their pics! One idiot stood in the way of one very beautiful frontal pic. Now, I can tell you just who Kunal Kapoor is ! A very HOT actor these days!

The line continued and we watched from below. Took loads of pics with the guests and the family. N's eldest son confessed that this was his first experience of an Indian wedding too! Well- he is only 17 and way in the States.

Before the end of the ceremony on the stage and after the guests have ceased to come on stage, there was a bit of commotion. It seems that the bride's party was trying to wrestle the groom's slippers off him! Dhi was explaining to me that it has become the trend lately for the bride and the groom's families to "steal" something from the other and then try to get it back - involving bartering and negotiating and talking "price". It can get rather hairy too as he related one incident where one side had hidden the stolen item in a car and the other side had broken into the car to get it! Compensation had to be paid!- well people do get carried away although I guess that is a pretty good ice breaker eh.

At the end, we finally got together to eat. A long U shaped table was put together and the bride and groom sat at the head of the table while I shamelessly occupied a seat at the other ends with the younger cousins. I supposed they thought this auntie is so childish the way I talk to them eh. Nadine sat in a chair behind me as she had allready eaten! Food today was all vegetarian but was not any less delicious!

After the meal, time to go...the bride's party "handed over" to the groom's family ..but they were separated for the nite..until the nite after the reception. We all got ready to go back....One thing that the Rai and Shetty clan had in common with us and the Adom Clan is that we all scrambled to get all the flowers off the stage!
Even Nadine went up and got ppl to get her orchids etc - she wore some flowers in her hair the next day. It was so much fun to watch everyone on the holy stage, taking the flowers home. Heehee hee! "Ke-jakun-an" is borderless I guess hee hee!

Sigh…it was all in all a colourful event. Full of joy. Felt so honoured to have been able to watch it.