2 in one

I got a chance to see a Northern style wedding in U.S. I had to leave with one of my Zimbabwe friend for our friend’s marriage. I was not surprised to see her dressed in American wedding suit but she was bit upset on seeing me covered from neck to toe. This being her first experience of attending an India marriage she had no clue how to deck out for the occasion. She was very concern about her dress and was thinking about crossing her front portion with shawl. We conversed about American, Zimbabwe and Indian wedding style during our 35 minutes drive to the marriage hall.

We were the first ones to reach the spot; we saw an empty hall filled with chair and tables. Later we witnessed few of our friend’s relatives running around to complete the decoration and other arrangements. After few minutes everyone started to show up and my Zimbabwe friend appeared bit relaxed after seeing her college mates dressed in same fashion as hers. I got introduced to many Americans and Chinese people in today's wedding. More or less it appeared as if I was seated in a American wedding as majority were Americans. I heard one repeated sentence from my friend “I can't imagine that our friend is getting married". Hearing this I could only understand how much she was missing the bride.

We waited and waited and there was no sign of bride/bridegroom entering the hall.
Later bride's brother asked everyone to assemble at the entrance to receive the bridegroom. It was fabulous to watch bridegroom's relative’s dance in front of the bridegroom's car. When the bridegroom entered the crowd greeted with a big applause.
The priest chanted some mantra's to welcome the bridegroom and his family. Everyone whispered about the turban that the bridegroom and the relatives had worn. Besides all this talks I found an American camera woman coolly moving around to shoot the marriage pictures.

Now we waited for the arrival of the Bride, we were very eager to see our friend in traditional dress. Someone screamed there she comes under the red dupattah held by four of her brothers. Our friend appeared extremely beautiful in the ornate Indian dress. The bride and bridegroom got seated on floor and went through a long process of Indian pooja. The best part of today's wedding was rice grain neatly packed in a mess cloth wrapped with baby ribbon. Instructions were announced in the mike when the rice grain should be thrown on the couple to bless them. Every one followed the instructions till the end of the wedding.

During the ceremony we dispersed for lunch, took a group snap with our friend and finally waved a bye to everyone in the hall. I had a flavor of both Indian and American style in this marriage. Though the wedding was witnessed by many American friends the spirit of Northern Indian culture existed predominantly in today's marriage. I also liked the adaptability of American's to Indian style wedding.