Me and my host mom on our way to the wedding
I attended a wedding a few days ago. It was the first one in my village since I’ve gotten here. I’d seen other wedding parties merrily walk by, beating drums and chanting on their way between the bride and groom’s houses in different villages, but none had taken place in my village.
My family was really excited for me to go. They kept talking about it for days. They told me about the sari I was going to wear. They described how a neighbor would do my hair in the traditional Nepali way. They said the wedding would go from 5pm- 11pm, with food and music taking up most of it.
We started preparing to go to the wedding 3 hours before it started. A group of women came over to all get ready together. None of the women’s husbands or kids were going (I never figured out the reason – when I asked, the men just said it was boring), so it was almost like an adult women’s version of the girls’ club. The women were so giddy and enthusiastic for the family-free night of dancing and and singing. I had never seem them like that before.
A neighbor, who owns the town’s hair shop, put my hair in a massive ornate bun, decorated with fake pearls and chains going from it to my ear lobes that were borrowed from other women. My hair was so decked out with extras my head felt very heavy. I also borrowed bangles for my arms. My host mom placed a lage bindi on my forehead. Some other neighbors tried to do my makeup next, but I refused. All of their makeup contains skin-bleaching creme (a huge problem I will address in a different post), which I definitely didn’t want on me.
It was finally time to put on the sari. It took 20 minutes for my team of stylists (the seven women who came to watch, help, and loan jewelry) to wrap me in it. I’ve worn saris before (I bought my first one in India four years ago), but this one seemed the most precariously-wrapped one I’d worn. Moving while wearing a sari is always daunting for me, and having to climb up a steep hill to get to the wedding was very difficult.
On our way to the wedding. Also, this was the moment when I realized how much taller I am than everyone else
We attended only the reception – I believe because some of the women were different castes. When we got there, the bride and groom were sitting at the entrance so people could place tikka (holy red powder) on their foreheads and sprinkle rice on them for good luck. I didn’t get a chance to do either because I was ushered to the front of the long buffet line, being greeted by the groom’s father and mother. The groom’s family had told my host father that morning that I would get VIP treatment, and I certainly did. Extra meat was served, they tried to give me homemade alcohol of some sort (I declined), and the wedding photographer certainly took enough pictures of me.
People giving rice and tikka to the bride and groom
After I finished eating, I went to the dance floor, where people were singing and playing drums. I started dancing with one of the women I attended with but after the first song wake up me it was time to go. It was very abrupt – I’d like to think it wasn’t my dancing abilities that prompted our departure (there were a lot of people dancing), but who knows. It was funny- I had been worried about spending six hours at the wedding, but we had only stayed for an hour and a half, and as I walked back down the hill I wished we had stayed longer.
At the reception
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