The story of our wedding

Monika tagged me to write about my wedding day(or rather I forced her to tag me)!

This is the story of our wedding day. Not of our wedding preparations or the aftermath, but what happened during our wedding. All our wedding preparations were being taken care of by S’s and my parents, and all we had to do was to show up! And I and S liked this arrangement because all we cared about was being married, not how. Well, he did, I still cared about how I looked etc, but more on that later.

Our wedding date was set for mid May, and there was an engagement in Feb. Well, if you can call it that! Both of us were in grad school in the US, and the engagement was more like an invite everyone and have naach-gaana party! And we were sent pictures and videos of all that fun!

Well, we were pretty excited too, but reached Hyderabad barely 10 days before D-day. I had entrusted all my jewelry and saree shopping to mom, and had complete faith in her choice. I liked all the sarees though, but there was a minor glitch. I had told my mom that I had put on a little weight, so I would want my blouses to be slightly bigger than the measurements she had. Guess what! The tailor sent my stitched blouses and I realized they were of tun-tun’s size! I was in tears (while my sister was passing comments like – ahh wear your sarees without a blouse, thats latest fashion!) but my multi-talented mom fixed them all in a matter of hours!

The day of the wedding dawned and I was in high spirits. I need to mention here that our muhurtam was at 1:40 am the next day.(Yes that is 1:40 AM), and there was to be a reception in the evening, before the actual wedding, so that all those friends and relatives who wouldn’t be able to stay for the wedding would get a chance to congratulate us, and also have food

So the day of the wedding arrived, and I and my sister, along with another cousin, were to go to the hotel room so the beautician(there is no word like that?) could get my makeup and hair done, and get me ready for the reception. Then after the reception I was to come back to the room so I could change into the wedding saree and also have the makeup toned down a little.

We were about to leave when I hear my mom yelling at someone at the top of her voice. Mom is not the yelling types, so I knew something was wrong. Turned out that the wedding photographer hadn’t turned up! Yes! The guy who was contracted to take pictures of our wedding was AWOL! And it was a day when half of Hyderabad was getting married. No wonder then that all the good photographers around our wedding hall were booked. My uncle and cousin went running to find someone, literally someone, to take wedding pictures. And they did find someone. And the fact that we never look at our official wedding pictures is proof of how good he was!

Anyway, back to makeup. This was to be the first time I was going to be all made up, and I was apprehensive. I told the makeup aunty that I wanted subtle makeup and not jhango stuff. She gave a snort(like a huh). I asked my sister to keep an eye on how much makeup is applied(meaning I wanted her to stop aunty before I was over made up). She nodded. Aunty turned my chair around so I wouldn’t be able to look in the mirror and got about her business. A good hour later aunty informs me that aal izz done! I turned around and shrieked. It wasn’t me staring back at me, it was someone jhango! I was the jhango madeup girl! I yelled at my sister but then it was too late as people were already starting to arrive and I had to go and stand with S and look pretty! I went. Like that. With OVER THE TOP makeup. As I walked in people did a double take. I knew instantly that they were shocked to see me, but couldn’t ask me why I did what I did. Everyone said I looked great, but no one except S expressed the kind of shock I had expressed when I saw myself in the mirror. (I bet he had buyers remorse, meri hone wali biwi ko is jhango ne kidnap kiya!)

The reception went well and I was back in the room for the wedding dress up. The wedding saree thankfully, was to be a white one, which was nice and airy and comfortable. And the makeup this time was less mime type, and more me. The wedding processes began at about 11:00pm. S tied the taali at 1:40am, and then the post tying rituals like homam etc began. We shifted from the main mandap to a side one, where there was a ‘homam’ kund ready. While we were walking around the fire, we looked around us to see everyone except our parents and siblings fast asleep. I kid you not! They were all sitting there a couple of minutes ago, then they stood up to put akshad, and now in a matter of minutes everyone had fallen asleep where they sat! So for the final ritual it was only us and our parents and grandparents who were awake!

Well the wedding done and at about 5:00am we were to go to S’s place to take some rest and get ready for the Satyanarayan Vrat again! I was dead tired. Went home, barely slept and then got ready and the puja started. I and S and were on the stage with the pujari and we were doing whatever he asked us to(pour water on the hands, touch the leaf, sprinkle haldi etc). Sometime between the pouring of water and sprinkling of the haldi I started to feel sleepy. The puja was almost coming to an end and the final part was the story. The story usually talks about how so and so family had bad things happen to them because someone fell asleep during the puja, and I was fast asleep! Poor pujari had to ask S to wake me up to do some finishing up stuff! So there, I fell asleep at my own wedding. Can it get more interesting than that?

UPDATE: Anyone who wants to write about their wedding is hereby tagged!

About these ads