After an exhausting and enormous amount of travel — 18 hours by plane and seven by car — we arrived on the other side of the globe from Yakima in Surat, India, a town of 8 million people that you probably have never heard of.
Our family of five was bursting with anticipation and excitement to attend the wedding of our treasured friend/daughter Foram, a Rotary foreign exchange student who lived with us in 2016 for a few months. Our friend Amaia is also friends with Foram and joined us on the adventure from her home in Spain.
My husband is in Rotary, and we regularly host foreign exchange students. We have kept in touch with Foram over the years and when she called to invite us to her wedding in India, we jumped at the chance. We could not miss the chance to spend time with her and experience this once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity. Indian weddings are famously multiday events with a healthy slice of grandeur. Notably, Foram and her husband Rutvik were a “love” marriage, not an arranged marriage.
But first, the clothes.
We didn’t travel this far to wear our normal American clothes to the wedding and all the festivities. We wanted immersion. We began our first full day in Surat at Foram’s family home, where we tried on various outfits that we could borrow from various relatives. A variety of gorgeous attire was laid out in front of us to choose from. If something didn’t fit quite right, Foram’s talented cousin came in and made a few stitches to tailor it to our form.
Next, we headed to a formal rental store, where we tried on gorgeous traditional Indian clothes. There, we found several things for our daughters, for my husband and even for our son. Then we headed to a large shopping mall and found a few more dresses; the girls and I bought matching deep purple and gold dresses for one event. Lastly, we went to a decadent boutique for one last outfit. In all, we needed six outfits each.
Our first wedding activity was the Mehndi ceremony, a tradition where the bride and her family and friends are adorned with gel made from a henna plant. Once the gel dries you essentially have a temporary tattoo. The designs are beautiful and intricate and often carry deep meaning.
The family constructed a temporary tent in front of their home for various activities. For Mehndi they had created a living room environment with embroidered couches where we sat to get our henna from a dozen artists. I chose to do both sides of both of my hands and the rest of my family chose smaller designs; the henna would stay on our hands for about 10 days. The Mehndi ceremony lasted for two days. On the second day, the bride had a special artist come in from Mumbai for her four-hour session.
We were glad to get a full night’s rest before the next day of ceremonies. We had to be up bright and early and dressed in our yellow outfits for the Haldi celebration.
We began with a more intimate religious ceremony at Foram’s home, where about two dozen relatives blessed Foram one by one, laying hands on her and painting her face and arms with a turmeric blend. Turmeric has healing and beautification qualities and the bride and groom undergo this ceremony to prepare them for the wedding.
We watched, mystified, and intrigued, for over two hours before her mother turned to us and asked if we wanted to participate. We joined in, with a sense of reverence and joy at the occasion, feeling blessed to be included in this family tradition. We painted Foram with turmeric and in turn, she painted our faces, too. Our turmeric dried easily, and we wiped it off later with baby wipes.
Later that morning, we all traveled to the event center, where the yellow décor was marvelous. Flowers and lights hung from trees and all the guests were elaborately dressed in hues of yellow. We had a few hours of entertainment, which culminated in showering the bride in flower petals. This part of the ceremony was pure joy and fun.
After lunch we headed home to rest before the evening’s party, Sangeet. Sangeet is a night of music and dancing. Different combinations of family members had prepared for weeks to perform choreographed dances on stage, including all the grandmothers. There was live music and then a great DJ — we danced well past midnight.
Wedding day! Foram arrived at the wedding venue with great fanfare, magically appearing at the top of a staircase in a cloud of smoke and fireworks. Her groom joined her on the stage, and they made a ceremonial entrance together. Our son Carter was included with Foram’s brothers as they walked her down the aisle. All our children were included in activities as though they were a true part of the family, which was lovely.
The wedding lasted hours and was a traditional Hindu ceremony, in which we all participated in varying degrees. Different from a Christian ceremony, guests mingled and ate dinner, choosing from a dozen Indian food buffets, while the ceremony went on. We had a very late night but could sleep in the next day.
Two days later, we had the added pleasure of attending her cousin Abhishek’s wedding. As part of the groom’s party, about 200 of us, mostly family, gathered at a relative’s apartment building. While we waited, we were served chilled bottled water and ice cream. The men were invited to don turbans, arranged by professionals. Both my husband and son joined in and looked terrific.
The Baraatt, which translates to the groom’s procession, is a fun ritual that takes the groom’s party from this location — dancing to loud music and fireworks — for four miles to the wedding locale to deliver Abhishek with great pomp and circumstance. While 200 of us danced to loud, pumping music provided by a live band and DJ on a truck with strobing lights, the groom sat in a horse-drawn carriage at the rear of the procession. Once at the wedding venue, we had dinner and watched another wedding ceremony, cutting out at midnight because the ceremony was scheduled to go until 2 in the morning.
The finale of all these events was a joint wedding reception for both Foram and Rutvik and her cousin Abhishek and Preyasi — an event with over 2,000 in attendance. The state of Gujarat is a dry state so none of the events had alcohol but instead coffee bars (since each evening lasted until midnight or later) and mocktail bars filled with a variety of sweet sodas. And of course, all the events had enormous amounts of delicious Indian food, most of which we’d never tried before in previous travels.
Our trip was an adventure filled with amazing cultural experiences. Even when ceremonies were in Hindi and we could not understand what was happening, we still felt emotional and connected to Foram. We felt beloved by her family, included in family activities, sharing tears and smiles as well as dance moves.
So magical and renowned is the Indian wedding experience, that a company now offers anyone the chance to participate, if you’re up for a grand adventure of culture, language, dance, spectacle, food, and music. You can pay to participate in an Indian wedding and enjoy a tremendous adventure like ours by contacting JoinMyWedding.com.
Who knows? Someday soon your hands may be adorned with henna, and you could be tossing flower petals at a happy bride in India.
