Wedding Day Three

The third day of the wedding consisted of two functions. In the early afternoon we we to a ceremony at another hotel. This was the first time we'd seen the bride, she and her family had arrived that morning from Mumbai. There was a ceremony between the two families. A sort of greeting and welcoming to the bride's family. They exchanged gifts and promises. The gifts varied from gift baskets of food and sweets to some stunning traditional jewelry mostly for the bride's family. It was a very small room with a lot of people who were all talking at once even all the way through the ceremony and the guru's prayers but it was also really interesting to watch. The bride was beautiful, and she wore a really heavy lehenga and had jewelry put on her. I don't think this was the first time that the couple had met but they didn't know each other well. The bride also had two brother's with her and I think it must be hard on the family to have a daughter leaving to another city so permanently.
Later, around 9 that night was a cocktail party organized by Ritu Grover at a garden event center just outside of the city. It was black and red, western dress code so we all bought formal western wear previously since none of us had really brought anything that nice with us. At the beginning of the night there was a series of dances preformed by the close friends and family of the wedding couple. The couple themselves sat in a flower covered pavilion with their parents off to the side of the audience where people could come congratulate them, take pictures, and they could see the stage. There was also a ring ceremony on the stage after the performance that only the family experienced close up. The rest of us enjoyed the massive buffet and dance floor that were set up. It ended up being a really late night, I think I'm starting to get the hang of dancing to Indian songs but it was still much easier for me to dance to the English ones, I think part of it is that knowing what the lyrics are saying helps.

The bride and groom at the afternoon ceremony.

The bride's brothers (standing) after giving blessings to the groom (sitting right). The holy man who performed the ceremonies is sitting on the left holding sweets.

The grooms sister (in blue on left) handing a gift to the bride's parents.

The bride and groom at the cocktail party. 

Close family friends of the groom's performing a a dance to a popular movie song at the cocktail party.

Little girls enjoying the performances as well.

Hannah, Jordan, and I.