Indian Wedding Weekend

Last Friday, Agnes and I flew to Chicago to attend the wedding of our son-in-law's brother Tad to his lovely bride Neha. This was a genuine Indian wedding with all the trappings, and it was an amazing festival of color, noise, and fun. Of course, there are pictures (we took more than 900), but they really don't do justice to the brilliant color and constant motion of an amazing weekend. Here's a brief summary of how it all went down ...

Our first event was a dinner and a traditional music and dancing party at a local temple on Friday evening. Everyone dressed up, of course, and our granddaughters Elise and Leya were obviously no exception ...

One of the traditions at Indian weddings is the painting of the ladies' arms and hands with intricate designs in henna. Leya had to have both hands done, of course ... here's the work in progress ...

And this is what it looks like when the initial application is done ...

The dark, glittery design dries and is mopped away with lemon juice, leaving the red henna designs on the skin. Leya also wanted to have her feet done, but was told that only the bride could have her feet painted. This picture shows a couple of things: a group of beautiful ladies, a selection of the gorgeously colorful Indian dresses (saris), and two parts of the henna process - the two ladies in the middle have freshly-painted designs that haven't dried yet; the lady on the left shows what the final design looks like ...

Family picture, anyone? Agnes and I with our daughter Yasmin and granddaughters Elise and Leya (peeking out from the back) ...

The dresses worn by the ladies were brilliantly colorful and exotic. Here's one small sample, showing Neha, the lovely bride (fourth from right), with a group of her friends ...

It was a long evening, with lots of (very loud) music and dancing, and everyone had a great time. Of course, as the hour grew late it was all lost on some of the younger attendees ...

Saturday was the actual wedding day, and the events began with a procession of the groom's side of the family and his friends through the parking lot from the hotel to the tent where the ceremony would be held. The procession was led by a drummer and a music car, followed by a decorated golf cart carrying the groom (and his niece who had grown tired of walking) ...

which was in turn surrounded by the large crowd of happily dancing friends and family ...

The procession eventually reached the site of the wedding, where there was more dancing and all sorts of ritual small events. One of the interesting things we learned was that the bride's family hails from northern India, and the groom's family from southern India ... and there are a great many differences in food and customs. We soon learned that we weren't the only ones who often didn't understand exactly what was going on or what we were eating ... but it really didn't matter because everyone was having so much fun - like this handsome young fellow, who seemed to pop up wearing a happy grin whenever he thought I needed something to photograph ...

It was difficult to get good pictures of the wedding ceremony itself, because there was a small army of event photographers who had their job to do, but I did get a few, including the lucky money shot as Tad put the ring on Neha's finger ...

The dinner and reception followed the ceremony, and everyone showed that they hadn't tired out from the events of the afternoon and the night before ...

It was also difficult to get good pictures at the reception because of the lighting and the nonstop action, but I did manage to get a few pictures of our granddaughter Leya really getting into the action on the dance floor ...

It was a great weekend of fun, culture, music, food, and color. By the time we flew home on Sunday afternoon we were utterly exhausted, but we'd had a wonderful time. The parties were grand, the ceremony impressive, and the weather perfect. The last thing to say is just to wish Tad and Neha the very best for a wonderful life together ...

Have a good day and a good week to come. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo