The time has finally come… to tell you about the marriage of Vinayak and Aurora… the wedding of the decade… VINRORA!
Aspects of the wedding:
Dec 28: evening meet and greet of all those who traveled from outside of India to attend, with a couple of natives thrown in. Lots of representation from all over the country and all aspects of the bride and groom’s life
Dec 29, 11 am - 5 pm: Mehndi: ceremonial painting of henna designs on the hands of female guests and massive decoration on the hands and feet of the bride. The groom’s mother, friends, and relatives sang and had a blast at this ceremony. It was pretty dang similar to the Mehndi scene in Monsoon Wedding . It was this day I picked out my fabric and style of my custom outfit for the formal wedding ceremony at Ethnic Textiles
Dec 29, 7 pm - late: Sangeet: everyone dances in special groups and some do solos. Indeed I danced in one of the groups but tensions were running high with a demanding choreographer on the loose. I appreciated her professionalism! Everyone really had a blast. Unfortunately the banquet hall was very loud and very hot and I was forced to escape to the lobby and upstairs bar a couple times.
Dec 30, Mid-day: Haldi: ceremony blessing the bride and groom with a special turmeric paste. Each guest blesses either the bride or groom depending on their side by take two sprigs of thyme, dipping it in an oil and herbal mixture, and tapping the feet, knees, elbows, and head in alternating crossing fashion, then dips into a vat of turmeric mixture and wipes it in varying degrees on the bride or groom. The bride or groom can retaliate depending on closeness and jokeness. The brother of the groom, for example, had a face covered in turmeric paste by the end. I got a polite little dot in my bindi.
Dec 30: The final wedding ceremony! Which starts with the baraat, in where the groom traditionally makes the trek from his home, sometimes several villages away, to the home of the bride. In our case, the groom came from his home at Lord’s Plaza Hotel down an alley way to Hotel Diggi Palace where the wedding was taking place. The band did a good job of playing the role of the family preventing the groom from leaving them and going to the bride, surrounding everyone, making them dance hard by blowing loud trumpets and banging drums, and collecting mad cash before proceeding. It felt like it took forever to get down the alley! Once at Hotel Diggi Palace, the bride’s family meets the groom and the bride and her family travel to a platform under a marigold encrusted shawl. There is an exchanging of garlands then the couple is taken to an area with a fire and a priest where many elaborate aspects of the ceremony are performed. IT WAS FREAKING COLD OUTSIDE and most of us milled around the fires and ate appetizers and didn’t pay attention. I guess it’s common for folks not to care about this. Many of the Indian guests just went to banquet hall and started eating dinner. After the ceremony was officially over, we chowed down on Indian buffet and basically did a million photo ops with the professional photography crew and the stage in the banquet hall. I guess I went back to my room to call it a night around 11:30, although peeps kept partying on the terrace of the hotel until late in the night.
Dec 31, New Year’s eve: Sightseeing day (reunited with Pramod!) at Amer Fort and Jantar Mantar (observatory). Amazing!! Then we had a fun NYE party in the VINRORA wedding suite in Hotel Diggi Palace which included a dance part in the bathroom… how many people can you fit into a dark bathroom in India? Just don’t trust the sink from falling down off the wall if you’re dancing on it. Happy New Year 2020 from Jaipur India!!!
