Why There Are No Hindu Weddings From July to October

Indian wedding invitations arrive in clusters because the calendar rules out long stretches of the year.

The largest block is Chaturmas, which VedicFeed puts at roughly four months, July through October or November. Marriages are traditionally not held during it. The tradition explains the period as the months when Lord Vishnu sleeps. Either way, a third of the year is closed before anyone opens a calendar.

Solar transit rules out two more windows. Kharmas, also called Malmas, runs from about mid-December to mid-January, then again from mid-March to mid-April, when the Sun passes through the signs Jupiter governs. Families avoid weddings in both.

Shorter exclusions sit on top of that. Holashtak covers the eight days before Holi. Pitru Paksha, the fortnight set aside for ancestral rites, is avoided too. So are the stretches when Jupiter or Venus are combust, known as Guru Asta and Shukra Asta, and because those follow planetary position rather than the solar calendar they move from year to year.

What is left is narrow. A dense corridor runs from late November into mid-December, a second opening starts in mid-January, and a spring window sits between mid-April and the return of Chaturmas. That is why venues on those dates go a year ahead, and why the same few weekends keep turning up on every invitation you get.