At last we come to the main event – humari shaadi :)
There are quite a lot of photos here, so we’ll break this up into two parts. First we have the reception dinner, held at The Ritz in Jammu:
As you can tell from the pictures, this was a smash hit. Well organised and beautifully decorated, the event ran without a hitch. There was plenty of delicious food and no shortage of guests to enjoy it, with a little over 450 showing up in the end! A real highlight for me was the barat; I arrived at the hotel in style – riding on a horse! :)
The main wedding ceremony was held that night, at Amarsha’s house in Greater Kailash:
Our raat ki shaadi was a more solemn affair than the colourful & loud jubilation which preceded it, but no less exciting. We began with a small pooja indoors – kanya daan – where Amarsha’s papa formally gave his daughter to me. We “tied the knot” – quite literally – with Amarsha’s dupatta attached to my stole.
After that we moved outdoors to sit around the havan and perform the main ceremony. The women of Amarsha’s family gave us a lot of bartan for our new life together, and I noticed somebody (Jeeju?!) had hidden my shoes! I gave Amarsha her wedding ring and applied sindhoor to her forehead, puffed rice was offered to the fire, a stone was used as a symbol of strength and stability, and a mangal sutra was tied around Amarsha’s neck. We completed our saat phere – seven rounds of the fire. We were married!
Eventually negotiations for the shoes began; for their recovery from my enterprising saalis I had to part with seven thousand rupees. I’m told that was a little higher than tradition necessitates, but it was all in good fun, and the shoes were well worth it ;)
As dawn broke Amarsha said her tearful goodbyes to family members, and we headed off down the road in Nanaji’s Maruti Alto, newly married…
~Gareth