Beautiful Feet: Traditional Indian Wedding

So a couple of weekends ago, I went to my high school friend's wedding in NJ. It was definitely interesting. The day before the wedding, I joked with my friend who was coming with me that he should pick me up in a horse and carriage. And when we arrived at the hotel parking lot, guess what, there was a horse and carriage there! LOL. Apparently, in traditional Indian weddings, the groom is supposed to arrive on a horse (I thought it was an elephant but that might have been more difficult to pull off). My friend and I, a high school friend and his wife, and another good high school friend were basically the only people I knew there, and we definitely stood out as the few non-Indian guests. The wedding ceremony was a new experience for me, full of symbolic rituals and most of it was done in Sanskrit I believe. We each had a small pamphlet describing each of the rituals so we could kind of follow along. It was a long wedding, by the time we sat down at the reception I think it was almost 9pm (the ceremony started at 4). All throughout the day we were wondering if they were going to serve Indian food, and then I started to crave Indian food. I'm glad I wasn't disappointed. It was buffet style. Seeing that we didn't really know that many people there, we left soon after dinner and congratulating the couple. I loved the speeches that were made, the bride's younger sister's speech made me laugh and cry at the same time. It reminded me of the speech I made at my sister's wedding just a little over a year ago. All in all, it was an interesting experience. I had fun and enjoyed seeing some people I hadn't seen in a long time, and getting to know the friend I went with a bit better. But it was definitely not worth the headache I'd caused myself. But hey, that's how you learn right?

Somewhere in the procession is the groom on a horse