Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Unnati weds Bipin: Chirag's Sister's Wedding

I went too Amhedabad at the invitation of the adorable Chirag, to attend his sister's wedding. Never one to miss an opportunity to dress-up and free dinner I went. Gujarati wedding are slightly different than Kannada weddings (Deepa's in December), but not by much. However, this time I was able to partake in some of the more family oriented events like the garba at home (community singing and dancing), mehendi (the henna tattoo), the engagement ceremony, and of course observing all the home chaos. All in all, it was fab. At the wedding took place in a water park, with water spouting plastic elephants and all. Who can beat that!?

Some of my AIF peeps tagged along, which made it more fun for me, since out of the 950 guest only 3 spoke English. I was definitely a notable presence during the festivities. I amused countless relatives, with my bad attempts and mimicking Gujarati, incessant picture taking, and generally just hanging around. But it does lead one to wonder how can you deal with almost a thousand of your closest family and friends without any alcohol!? (Gujarat is a dry state and so are the weddings)

Hightlights definitely included teaching (trying to at least) Chirag's mum how to Salsa.


The happy bride to be waiting for her mehendi to dry


Relatives galore singing and smearing turmeric paste on the bride

The excited mother of the bride (on the left)




Bride and Mother

The brother (Chirag) and the priest doing some sort of blessing

The proud father of the bride

The Siblings

Sisters

More blessings

A metaphor for marriage?


Mrs. Patel learning to salsa. She was amused - I think!

Everybody Garba!


Andy and Chirag looking all ethnic

Engagement ceremony


And the groom arrives


The Bride

The Mother of the Bride


The groom


The AIF crew

The Happy Couple

Andy and Chirag Working it

AIF Crew Playing with the Garbage Can Man

Very Exhausted Mother and Aunts

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The white linen kurta looked totally fab!! Aren't you glad you bought it? Chirag's black/grey kurta looked great too. The groom is cute. :)

Ameet said...

So why does the garbage-can man have an arrow pointing to his crotch? Is that where the garbage goes in?

Anonymous said...

You did manage to make an amazing impression on the relatives and friends at the wedding...especially my mom...she now all set to make your favorite MANGO-PICKEL for you and send to Mumbai...not ever I heard she agreed to like that for anyone before!

Anonymous said...

I, quite a few times, had to work as interpreter, but after a while they all got used to Andy's body movements and I was spared. :)

Vijayeta said...

And now I meet your blog! Great :)
Loved the wedding pics! Is this the wedding where you made rotis? Just curious!
And how come we never bumped into you at the fashion week!? I know Minelli and the other Think Pink people too...
And, oh God, the Edwin Pinto shoes...Fabulous!
:)