Getting dressed up for a traditional ceremony here means that Sam must wear a sari, and Jon and Atticus can choose to either wear the Punjabi suit or a western suit. We asked around regarding which was most appropriate and for the mehendi ceremony, Jon and Atticus wore their Punjabi suits and for the wedding they wore suits. It was fortunately the correct combination- at the mehendi ceremony everyone had Punjabis on and at the wedding everyone had on suits. Whew- another local social-norm test passed.
So, before we get to the actual events, we thought we’d share a little of our befuddlement at the proportions of fancy ‘deshi clothes. You may or may not already know that the sari is basically a really long piece of fabric that is wrapped, tucked and pinned in a confusing jumble of pleats and drapes into a petticoat underneath. Sam can’t actually do it herself and every time she needs to dress up she has to go downstairs to our landlord’s apartment where his mom or sister helps her put it on. Sometimes, such as the case of the wedding reception, they also get really excite a offer to do Sam's makeup, loan her jewelry, purses (oh, sorry- "party clutch"), etc - basically, they try their damnedest to make Sam into an acceptable Bangladeshi woman- lots of makeup and lots of bling. Sam has yet to allow the makeup, but this most recent time she did get loaded up with jewelry and it worked out ok. The bracelet was was pretty hardcore.




We arrived at the mehendi ceremony about twenty minutes late, so naturally we were almost the first people there. We should have known to show up an hour late and we would have still been early. Anyhow, we got to check out the nice decorations of the banquet hall. In true Bangladesh style too, no event hall would be complete without a graphic depiction of the 1971 genocide.


About two hours later things got started. We didn’t completely know what was going on all the time, but basically the bride and groom arrive separately and walk in covered by a marigold thing over them and head toward the stage.


Here are the bride and groom on the stage- those are all real flowers strung together in the background too.


The wedding reception was actually a lot more fun than the mehendi ceremony. For one, we knew people at the wedding since there was other IUB faculty there and we were able to hang out with them. The reception was held at the golf club by our house and so it wasn’t a long journey to get to it (especially nice, since earlier traffic had made our trip to the liquor store take over two hours!). And of course, even though we forced ourselves to get the a little late we were still some of the first to arrive. The hall was huge, and it reflects the increasing elaborateness and size of wedding ceremonies as the middle and upper classes acquire more and more wealth they need to spend.
Here are a few pictures that start to capture the volume of lights outside of the event hall at the golf course:


Similar to the other ceremony, this one involved the bride and groom coming in and then sitting on a little stage where everyone takes photos of them. Then a religious guy says a prayer, food is served (meaty biryani for everyone else of course- but we had plain rice), and everyone leaves. It was actually funny, because even though the affair seemed so big and the venue was so fancy, it is kind of low-key. You come, take photos, eat and then take off. Once you take your picture, the bride and groom are actually kind of secondary. Atticus took a ton of photos and had a blast taking part in the photo sessions. Between this and the recent boat trip, we have quite a budding photographer on our hands. Here are some pictures from the night.
This is the stage before the bride and groom arrive - this guy totally owns it by the way.
Here is the bride (she is supposed to look sad in order to symbolize leaving her family behind). Check out the awesome mehendi on her hands.




All in all, we had a great time, Atticus had tons of fun, let his shyness fall aside and got to experience a lot of new things. Here is a shot that shows how excited he was for the groom to arrive - what can we say? The kid loves a wedding.
No comments:
Post a Comment