A traditional Indian wedding

An Indian wedding is very abusively with a lot of rituals and it´s pretty colourful. It is interesting and new for a German to be a guest at such a wedding. The preparation is already very different to a German wedding:

A normal fact is that the wedding is mostly arranged and the parents have to find the right partner for their child. A suitable partner has to be in the same caste like their family.

A horoscope says the day of the wedding and if the couple can marry in general. When the horoscope says that the couple can marry, they´ll be engaged. But is the divine side not agree, the wedding will not take place.

In some cases the two partners have never seen them before up to the day of wedding. I think it´s very strange because you´ll have to be with a man you´ve never seen before and maybe he is ugly or stinky or has a brutal character. *Help!*

Here are some rituals that the couple has to observe:

The groom must go with friends and family to the bride´s house and he´ll get a drink of honey and yoghurt. In the garden there stands a pavilion and the man has to sit in front of a kind of altar and next to him is a curtain and behind it the woman sits. They can´t see each other. A priest opens the curtain and the long phrases with love and "now you can kiss your wife" start.

It is interesting that the couple has to throw butter oil and rice as a prey to gods into a ritual fire and has to go with knotted clothes seven times around the fire.

These are bids of the wedlock:

- religious obedient

- getting a lot of sons

-"Kama"= Having fun while having sex :)

In the end the couple is sprinkled with holy water and then they have to sit a long time on their place where the other family members watch at them.

How they look:

While the wedding preparation the bride´s hands and feet get coloured with a kind of henna-creme. It looks very great in the end of every colouration of a bride. She also wears jewellery and a sari that has to be coloured with a reddish colour. Red is the colour of luck, the Indish say. It is very various from pink up to brown.

Sometimes the bride and her husband swap gerlands while the ceremony.

When you look at the bride you can see if her family is rich or not. A great wedding is expensive, we all know this. I also want to be a guest at such a great colorful celebration with the whole family! It must be pretty good!