Here Come the Bride, All Dressed in....Red?!

As promised, I am here to update you about the wedding I went to last night. Weddings here are kind of different, people eat, they take pictures with the "happy couple", and then they leave.

The card said that the wedding started at 19:30, so in true Bengali fashion, my uncle and I arrive around 21:30. According to my Aunt (this was her cousin's wedding, so she was part of the wedding party and was present the entire night), she said that people arrived around 20:30 pm and then started leaving around 00:30. There is a steady flow of people throughout the night because families come and go as they please. If I had to guess, there were about 500-600 people present at some point or another last night. There's no set schedule and dinner is served the entire time, kind of like turning tables at a restaurant for six hours straight.

 

The wedding was held in this huge ballroom. There were two rows of couches in the front and then the rest of the space consisted of large tables that never seemed to be vacant. As it is the bride and groom's duty to sit upon the dais and take pictures the entire night, the two of them, along with the rest of the wedding party, did not eat until midnight.

Here's another attempt to capture the vastness of the room, however, I kept getting pushed so it came out a little blurry.

There is a stage set up in which the bride and groom sit upon the entire night. It is covered with fresh flowers that were dyed blue and gold. Both the bride and the groom are gifted their wedding apparel from the other side of the family (yikes! that would drive me positively mad not being able to choose my dress). Luckily this saree is pretty, as I've seen some pretty disastrous get-ups. The bride also wears a lot of jewelery because she is gifted many gold sets from her in-laws and parents and for some reason must wear them all on this night. 

Traditional wedding colors are red and gold. A far cry from the American white. Also, you may notice that a lot of people look sad and are not smiling. In general, most Bangladeshi people don't smile in photographs. However, especially on her wedding day, the bride must be forlorn. Why? Because she is leaving her family to move in with her in-laws. This inner misery is reflected on her face and thus, the groom also does not smile because his bride is sad.

I once went to a wedding where the bride smiled a lot and seemed genuinely happy. Big mistake. Her smiling is what I heard about the entire night...the people around me were appalled that she wasn't looking miserable in all her photographs. Their conclusion? That she obviously didn't care and wasn't really thinking about her family that night. 

In the all fairness, this bride did smile once or twice last night. The 'no smiling' rule is a generalization, and I'm sure there are beaming Bengali brides somewhere, as I myself intend to smile throughout my wedding day. It's a happy occasion, not a funeral. But that's just my personal opinion of course.

So I came, took my picture with the bride, and then realized that I had another two hours of my time to kill. And so...well you can probably just see what I did for yourself below:

Most people's photographs that night looked like this...

and this...

or this.

However as you all probably know, I don't do too well with social convention, and those pictures above are frankly, well....boring. 

So after the mandatory nice pictures were taken, this happened:

 

PHOTOSHOOT!

 

 By the time I was done taking all these pictures it was time for me to leave. Garlands of white flowers were exchanged by the bride and groom and the processional was created to walk the "happy couple" to their car. Tears began flowing as the bride said goodbye to her family, and congratulations were given with misty eyes (really people? you'll see them again. I promise. Like I understand being a little sad, as their lives will probably change, but overall you should be happy for them!). Then, my aunt and cousin drove off with the wedding party to the bride and groom's new home.

The wedding party fed the couple plenty of sweets (the key is to take infinitesimal bites, so that by the time everyone has fed you a spoonful, you have only eaten a single piece of cake) and then walked them to their decorated bedroom (see some traditions are the same as American ones) and went their separate ways for the rest of the night.

When I finally got home (does traffic ever cease in this city?!), I went to my room, unwrapped myself from the tangle of pink fabric, and fell fast asleep. While this wasn't the most exciting event I've ever been to, I can say that I am glad to get a new profile picture ;)

Love and miss you all,

Carolyn