Wedding fun...and not so much fun

I feel very privelaged to have had the experience I had last week at the wedding. So far, I had been to a few wedding receptions. One shows up at a big wedding hall, waits in line to go on stage and take a picture next to the bride and groom who are done up to the nines, and then walks down and gets fed in a very mechanical, rotating feast, where one sits down in front of a clean banana leaf and servers place piles of rice, iddly, chutneys, sweets, etc in front of you, and when you're done, you just go...and someone else sits down infront of a new leaf and eats...

This wedding was different. As I mentioned before, Anandani's Auntie is close friends with the groom, so we spent a lot of time during the week with the family. We met the bride on Monday and went saree shopping with her and her mother and the groom's mother...so we know the bride almost as well as the groom- he's only met her 2 more times than we had prior to the wedding! We also stayed at the groom's parent's house and watched all of the wedding preparations and got to hear about how to plan a wedding with 15,000 invites sent!
When we returned from Ooty, we got a hotel (even though the groom's family said we could stay with them! This is really hospitality...but we didn't want to make them crazier than they were). We got up early to attend a 6:30am ceremony at the groom's house. He was dressed in a dothi (like a wrap skirt that is traditionally worn by men) and barechested so that he could receive a ritual bath from his brother in law and grandmother in the front yard. They poured hot water over him and then circled his head with pongal (a rice mixture) and then blessed him with ash and placed a putu (like bindi- vermillion and ash on the forehead). Then he had "wedlock" toe rings placed on both 2nd toes. These are worn after marriage (instead of finger rings) by all married Hindu women. Somehow now, traditionally men wear them from this ceremony only for 3 days and take them off...after that they have no sign of marriage (hmmm why do women get burned for presumed extramarital affairs and it's pretty much ok when men do it....) Anyway, after the ring was placed, all the older family members followed the mostly now-extinct tradition of giving him money in auspicious denominations (11 rs, 101 rs, 1079 rs etc). For every relation who gave money, no matter how little, the groom's parents gave that person an article of clothing. Then breakfast was served to everyone (there were only 50 people at the house for this, not all that were invited to the wedding).
Then, before the reception that evening, I suddenly came down with a bad case of gastroenteritis, so I spent the rest of the day in the hotel room/bathroom, while everyone else got dressed in new outfits and glamorous fake gold costume jewelry, new bangles, etc for the reception...but then Anandani got sick half way through and came home early to share my misery.

At 4:45am when we had to get up for the actual wedding ceremony on Monday morning (the aupicious time ends at 7:30 so everything had to be done before then), I somehow felt good enough to shower and go the wedding hall....Anandani didn't. She stayed back and watched the porecelin horse go by.
I dressed in a really "grand" platinum and burnt orange colored silk saree with gold embroidery and beading lent to me by Anandhi, put on her costume jewels, a really sparkly bindi, bangles, embroidered slippers, and went to the ceremony. We got there early and went to the groom's quarters, where about 25 people had slept on the floor that night and were busy trying to take bucket baths and tie beautiful silk sarees, and coconut oil their hair.
The ceremony was long and complicated. First the 2 hindu priests sat on the stage- all adorned with flowers and garlands- and prepared the ritual fire and did some blessings with the groom and his brother and law only (bride still away). They put a traditional turban on him and vermillion and ash on the forehead again. After about 40mins the bride came out in about >$1,000 saree that had so much gold work, you could hardly tell that the silk background was orange and copper underneath. She also had fake hair extension braid down past her rear, small gold charms hanging off her hair, a real!! gold belt and gold necklaces, earrings, chains, and arm bands probably totalling over a 1lb. (PS: gold here is sold by weight so about $25/gram and the price of each piece changes with the market. So a nice necklace is all gold so they just put it on the scale and tell you how much it costs...same no matter the design... and this is how she has a dowry....they buy thousands of $$ of gold to put all over her and later if the couple needs money they sell pieces. )
So...the bride came out and with her attendants, circled the fire and the groom 3 times and then sat. The priest did a few blessings with the couple and then the groom tied the thali around her neck. This is a necklace, usually on a cord rope, but with 2 solid gold figurines on the bottom that she NEVER takes off in her life...she showers and sleeps always with it and it is long, but tucked under her saree blouse so the actual religious part (that varies based on caste etc) is not usually shown in public. After the groom tied the thali around her neck and the parents of each helped him, the crowd threw rice.
And, for a strange turn, they all went back to their rooms behind the stage to await the arrival of the big movie stars/politicians who were the guests of honor and partial wedding sponsors. But, as movie stars are, they were late...so after a 15 minute break, the wedding procession came on stage again and walked to the back of the auditorium to greet them. AND THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. 5,000 people rushed the stage....screaming and crying and trying to see them. These are (old) movie stars but some of the biggest names in Tamil movies- Sarathkumar and Radhikha. Sarathkumar is now the party head for a Tamil political party and the groom is the Coimbatore district secretary for the party, hence their closeness and appearance at the wedding. After about 20 mins of chaos, people kind of settled down and only 1/3 of people were on the stage. Sarathkumar addressed the audience. A family friend dragged myself and Auntie Victoria onto the stage and formally introduced us to Sarathkumar and Radhikha and we got to take a picture with them and the bride and groom.

After this, I still felt like a dead dog, so I left before the gigantic mechanical meal event occurred because I hadn't yet eaten in 2 days....and I unfortunately didn't take any pictures, but I will be getting a CD from the wedding photographer with the famous people! Anyway, I left, slept for a few hours, and by that time Anandani was feeling better, so we managed to travel back home to Namakkal 5 hrs in a car, and here we are, back at work!