Today one of T-rav's old refugee clients from Bhutan got married and happily, we were invited for the festivities. It was everything you would expect from a Hindu wedding: incense, a pundit chanting in Sanskirt, (i.e. Hindu priest, but pundit is a much cooler word) head shaving, beautiful, brightly colored saris, henna, delicious food, and lots of tikas (the red dots on their forehead...it becomes more of a large blob on special occasions).
Here guests greet the new couple and give them a blessing (by sprinkling flower petals on their heads and adding more rice to their tika) and a gift. There is also, of course, the requisite "namaste" greeting each time. A wedding like this usually takes place outside where they have the space and open air to build a bonfire and make make a large alter to one of their gods, Krishna. But living in a small apartment in a kind of trashy complex in South Salt Lake made it rather difficult, so they made do with what they had.
These are the bride's mother, sister, and sister -in-law. The bridesmaids?
My two favorite Nepali girls. They were there as friends of the family. I want to keep them.
Today one of T-rav's old refugee clients from Bhutan got married and happily, we were invited for the festivities. It was everything you would expect from a Hindu wedding: incense, a pundit chanting in Sanskirt, (i.e. Hindu priest, but pundit is a much cooler word) head shaving, beautiful, brightly colored saris, henna, delicious food, and lots of tikas (the red dots on their forehead...it becomes more of a large blob on special occasions).
Here guests greet the new couple and give them a blessing (by sprinkling flower petals on their heads and adding more rice to their tika) and a gift. There is also, of course, the requisite "namaste" greeting each time. A wedding like this usually takes place outside where they have the space and open air to build a bonfire and make make a large alter to one of their gods, Krishna. But living in a small apartment in a kind of trashy complex in South Salt Lake made it rather difficult, so they made do with what they had. 
These are the bride's mother, sister, and sister -in-law. The bridesmaids?
My two favorite Nepali girls. They were there as friends of the family. I want to keep them.
5 comments:
What a cool experience!! Thanks for sharing.
Fautie the amused says
You did not look like that on your wedding day because you of Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Danish, German descent. Basically just and American Mongrel.
Fautie Hill
But it would have been so much COOLER this way.
Fautie says:
Yea but if you were born in that culture you would think it would be cooler to be in this one.
You didn't look like this because I don't think all those colors would be temple approved.
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