In the previous article, we toured Jaipur’s Pink City. It’s very cool and extremely photogenic, but it’s not why I came back to India. I came here for my friend’s wedding. It was busy time in my life, so I actually flew in from London for just 2 days! I was packing my bag like “I cannot believe I am doing this” … this was far and away the worst ratio of distance-traveled to time-in-destination I have ever had in a trip. As a reminder, here’s where this article is taking place:

Now, you may have heard about Indian weddings before… TL;DR, if you get invited to one, try your very best to make it. They are extremely cool. But this wedding… I need to disclaim now that this is absolutely NOT representative of what most Indian weddings are like. This is going to be extravagant. My other Indian friends in attendance would caption the obvious, saying “most Indians will never go to a wedding like this in their whole life.” But I’m not going to spend much time talking about the economic dimension of this event. We’re just going to enjoy it for what it is.

So please join me in wishing a big, fat CONGRATULATIONS to bride & groom, Suhani and Devansh. ❤️👰🏽‍♂️

The event lasted about 2.5 days and was hosted at the Fairmont Jaipur. This place looks like a true Indian palace, not far off from what I’d imagine Rajasthani royalty lived in once upon a time. About a month before the event, we (the invitees) all received a 6-page PDF explaining how we were expected to dress for each part of the wedding. The document was simultaneously really beautiful and exciting… but also a bit stressful, as we now all needed to figure out where to but these clothes. In the end I outsourced this to Indian friends who I reimbursed in cash when I saw him at the wedding. Shoutout to my dudes Chaitanya & Abhinava. 😘

Despite the fact that our flight landed in the middle of the night, we were picked up at the airport by a small team of people with gift baskets and whisked off to the palace through the night. As I watched Rajasthan whiz by out the window, I reflected on how this place may have evolved since my last visit here 10 years ago. I think I got to bed around 4:30 or 5am local time.

The next morning, this was the view that awaited us…

Let’s skip ahead to night 1. I was just a couple of minutes earlier than the official start of the event in the itinerary… only to find the hotel lobby empty. One of the groom’s friends passed me in hallway and looked confused as she told me that she hadn’t even started getting ready yet. She laughed that this event will run on “Indian Standard Time” (meaning, everything will start later than advertised). Clearly not her first rodeo. No worries! Everything in the hotel was free with just a mention of the groom’s name, so I enjoyed a hot cup of chai by the pool and waited for the crowds to appear.

To the best of my understanding, the first night was really just a party. Eventually a crowd had gathered to begin grazing on the endless food and drink that was offered. When the bride eventually made her entrance, “Ik Junoon (Paint It Red)” by Vishal Dadlani began BLASTING as teams of backup dancers dressed in traditional Indian garb escorted her down the stairs. As they slowly descended the grandiose staircase in lines on either side of her, they performed a tightly choreographed modern dance, waving scarfs back and forth in the air for additional flare. The bride beamed as she did her own seemingly improvised dance moves, moving down the stairs at the pace of the lines of dancers on either side of her. The volume of the music and the unexpectedly perfect choreography hit me like a big, brightly-painted freight train; I felt like I was witnessing a flashmob! It was pretty much the coolest entrance I’ve ever seen anybody make, and it set the tone for everything that was to come.

Looking at Indian pop music from afar, I get it if you don’t like it, or if you’ve never been interested to try it out. It’s a genre (or, a group of sub-genres) that plays exclusively to its audience and can be pretty inaccessible to outsiders… but I promise, once you are in the middle of this, hearing it in context and at high volumes, it’s pretty impossible not to like. Here’s a playlist of songs I Shazam’d over the course of this wedding that are still getting regular rotation months later!

If you’re wondering, IST stands for “Indian Standard Time” 😂

After the bride’s musical entrance and the brief outdoor event that followed, we were advised to find our way to the next venue. Through a long hallway with lighting arranged in such a way that it felt like a human-size kaleidoscope, we arrived to a new part of the hotel that I didn’t even know existed! On the right, there was an outdoor area underscored with soft fake grass and illuminated by torches and heat lamps where teams of chefs were preparing cuisine from every corner of the world to be served in a never-ending free buffet all night long. On the left was the entrance to an ornate banquet hall with a huge stage set up like we were about to see a concert. Little did I know, the performer was… ME!

Or, it would have been.

Seemingly every major social cluster that had been invited to this wedding was also invited to do group dances. Having missed the one rehearsal, I opted out and I did not regret that decision even the tiniest bit as I watched my friends stumble their way through a clumsy Bollywood dance number in front of hundreds of other guests. It was hard to imagine that there was much cause for embarrassment though; despite the opulence of the surroundings, the atmosphere was completely unpretentious and fun. The night basically seemed to run like a big talent show. The bride and groom both performed elaborate dance numbers for each other, supported by teams of backup dancers. It was very entertaining, but nothing made me smile as much as watching their PARENTS—including the father of the groom, who we’d met that morning—get up and do their own vigorous performances to Bollywood dance songs. They were all grinning and laughing through the whole performance; they were clearly having a lot of fun up there. And they had some moves! I cannot even imagine my own parents doing something like this. I’m always looking for better ways to describe these experiences, but in this case, “FUN” is the adjective I keep coming back to; Indians know how to have fun.

Following this, the first rows of chairs were cleared to make way for dancing. We went outside for some food (which was actually delicious) and eventually returned to watch a girl on stage singing a combination of covers and originals. I assumed this was just like the Indian equivalent of a “wedding band”, but this girl was actually really good. This wasn’t a genre I knew much about, but she was nailing some really difficult vocal runs—actually making them look quite easy—so I looked her up on Spotify. My eyebrows damn near flew off my forehead when I saw “19.5M Active Monthly Listeners” next to her name. It was Jonita Ghandi, a name with which most Indians seem to be familiar. As more and more people returned to the dance floor from dinner, the atmosphere got more and more rowdy.

I was actually dealing with a bit of a head cold when I arrived here. I thought that if I didn’t drink, I could make it through this event without digging my grave any deeper, and that the warm Indian climate might do me good… well, first off, Rajasthan in the winter actually gets quite cold at night! Second, there were roving duos of staff pranksters with mobile silos of Jägermeister connected to hoses that got everybody—including me—quite drunk. This was not part of my plan, so I eventually I was trying to avoid them, but I was actually held down at one point to be fed more Jägermeister. It was all in good fun, but as the night wore on, I began splitting my time between the dance floor and the outdoor pop-up restaurants, offsetting the alcohol with endless, free, gourmet food. As the temperature in the Rajasthani desert that surrounded us continued to drop, I was beginning to shiver out there. My cold was definitely not getting any better, but I didn’t care. This night was too fun pass up!

WEDDING DAY ARRIVES

Haldi

Wedding day started with a ceremony called “Haldi”.

“Haldi” literally means turmeric. In many parts of India, turmeric is an auspicious and symbolic spice. It is associated with prosperity, happiness, and positivity, in addition to lots of health benefits. In the Haldi ceremony, turmeric powder is made into a paste by mixing it with ingredients such as oil, water, and sometimes other herbs or even yogurt. The bride and groom receive blessings and well wishes from their closest friends and family via a playful smearing of this Haldi powder on their faces and hands. Another supposed health benefit of turmeric is that it supports radiant skin, so the couple will arrive at their wedding ceremony with a Haldi-induced glow. This ceremony is intended to purify the couple and ward of negativity. In accordance with the yellow color of turmeric, everybody will dress in yellow for this ceremony. They blast music, they dance, and they form a queue to smear Haldi powder on the faces of the bride and groom. It’s a really joyful ritual!

I should also note that, although India is an extremely diverse country with a variety of different cultures and languages, the Haldi ritual is actually quite a common component to weddings across these cultures! Depending on the region and culture, it also goes by the names “Mayian”, “Vatna Maiyun”, “Pithi”, and “Ubtan”.

So, if you refer back to the “Wardobe Planner” I shared above, there are renderings of what appropriate outfits for the Haldi ceremony would look like for both men and women. Hint: they are yellow, the color of turmeric. I had been advised that, of all the outfits recommended, this is the one whose purchase should be top priority. So, fighting both a cold and a hangover, I embraced the Curious George “man in the yellow hat” vibes, and threw on my tumeric-chic suit to join the sea of yellow for Haldi.

The event was bee-hive themed. The platforms where the bride and groom would sit, respectively, were wrapped in a giant, yellow honeycomb. Meanwhile, as the ceremony played out, free plush bees were given out, along with tiny jars of honey. In the background, yellow food was available (most dishes included a highly-visible yellow ingredient, such as pineapple).

There was also a henna (a.k.a. mehndi) ceremony that ran in the background of this. I’m guessing that most of you reading—especially the ladies—are familiar the henna ceremony, because this is where henna tattoos are given. Typically, these tattoos are given to the bride to bring good fortune and positivity, which dovetails with the themes of Haldi nicely. So, naturally, the ladies in attendance were rotating through the henna tattoo parlor while the bride and groom were getting plastered in turmeric paste. Here are a few pictures…

WEDDING CEREMONY

THIS is where things were really going to get good.

Before the festivities began, I left my hotel room—to which a steady stream of gifts had been delivered since my arrival—to take a few pictures of the sunset over the palace. These pictures should set the scene nicely for the magic that will come next.

Just inside of a large palace gate, a crowd had gathered. In the middle of the crowd was an ornate chariot pulled by a horse wearing an elaborately colorful outfit, which included a feathery headdress. Music was BLASTING; drummers beating double-sided barrel drums (called ‘dhol’s) with sticks joined the rhythm section already blaring out of the sound system. This poor horse must have been scared stiff. But the noise only intensified when the man of the hour (the groom) appeared, made his way through the crowd, and mounted the horse. Eventually he relocated to the chariot, along with an excited-looking young boy, who I assumed was a nephew, or perhaps a cousin. Slowly, the horse and chariot, as well as the surrounding crowd, walked out of the palace gate together.

Outside the gate, we were joined (in the front) by a giant pick-up truck whose truck bed had been mounted with a comically huge stack of speakers, so it could function like the stage at a techno club, and (on the sides), rows of servants carried illuminated umbrellas with ropes of flowers hanging from them, functioning like living street lamps. This loose unit became a slow-moving parade, which inched along the side of the palace with music blasting, drums beating, fireworks shooting, and people dancing non-stop. It probably took us an hour to move 200 feet.

Eventually, we were slowly arriving at the main gates of the palace, which towered over us. The procession paused here for extended music and dancing. Right there on the street, the groom’s mother and father appeared in the center of the crowd, dancing shamelessly and joyfully. I’m told that, one theme here is that the groom’s family is celebrating adding a member to their family, while the bride’s family is mourning the loss of a member of their family. So, the groom’s entire posse was celebrating, while the bride’s invitees were… somewhere else, feeling sad? Whatever they were doing, this knowledge gave the parents’ dancing a comical context.

In time, we would walk through the palace gates to find a long, elevated walk-way that stretched from the palace doors to a stage that had been set in the center of the plaza. The crowd filed in on either side of the walk-way, while the grooms family positioned themselves on the stage at the end of the walkway.

At that point, the blaring music FINALLY subsided slightly, and the lights dimmed. All eyes turned toward the front of the palace, where an elaborate light show began, choreographed to an entirely new soundtrack. Occasionally a deep, masculine, disembodied voice would speak in Hindi like a rendering of old-testament God in a movie from the 1950s.

The light show was really quite spectacular. I was thoroughly enjoying it, when all of a sudden…

BAM! The music cut abruptly and a spotlight came out of nowhere to reveal the bride, standing posed in a window just over the palace gates.

The crowd gasped and applauded. This was some serious showmanship! And then, just as abruptly as she was revealed, she was again cloaked in darkness as the light show resumed.

She descended from her perch atop the palace gates, and then—quite dramatically—the gates slowly began to swing open, as fog and bubble machines flooded the area with smoke and bubbles which floated performatively in the air. From behind this wall of smoke and bubbles, a small army of Indian dancers emerged, beginning an elaborate choreographed march to dance their way out toward the foot of the walkway. The bride was at the back of this procession. The dancers peeled off to the right and to the left, leading the bride to the foot of the walkway…

The bride then stepped up onto the walkway, which was suddenly illuminated by fountains of sparks began shooting vertically upward on either side, outlining her path toward the groom and her in-laws to-be with walls of fire… I am doing my best to paint you a word picture, but I just have to show you.

An absolutely gorgeous song called “Parvati Boli Shankar Se” by Hansraj Raghuwanshi played as she walked slowly and performatively down the aisle… she looked like an Indian Disney princess.

I think I speak for everybody in the audience when I say that the beauty of this scene had me absolutely stunned. I could barely believe what I was seeing, nor that I had ever questioned even for a moment if it was going to be worth it to fly all the way to India for this. When she reached the end of the walkway, they lit up the entire sky, shooting off—over the course of 2 minutes—as many fireworks as had been used in the past 3 hours combined. It was pretty insane.

Their families behind them, the bride and groom stood there on the stage facing toward each other while an officiant spoke to them both. At this point, it bore a strong resemblance to the western-style wedding ceremonies with which I was familiar. When the officiant was finished speaking, the couple joined hands and walked back down the asile toward the front gates of the palace. Sparks were shooting. Lights were flashing. Music was blaring. Fireworks were exploding. The crowd was cheering. And as they disappeared through the palace gates, I turned to my friends with an exasperated exhale and remarked that this was the most incredible wedding I’d ever seen. They responded that what we’d all just witnessed was, in fact, NOT the wedding ceremony!

This was just the bride and groom meeting each other. NOW it was time for the actual ceremony!

Flash forward 20 minutes, and we had all migrated back out behind the palace where the festivities had began. Do you remember the sunset gallery above with the elaborate half-circle overhang made of flowers? I’d pretty much forgotten about that random construction, but it turned out that this would be the site of the grand finale!

The bride and groom soon reappeared (to great fanfare!) and made their way to the flowery shelter (which is called a “mandap”, where they and their families sat by a fire. THIS, I’m told, was the actual wedding ceremony. It actually looked to be quite intimate and personal, which was nice—but drew a strong juxtaposition with the elaborate event schedule that had led us to this point. It was simply not possible for every single guest to get a few of what was happening, so while we’re exploring the never-ending all-you-can-eat gourmet buffet, let me share with you what I have learned about this family of wedding traditions.

According to Hindu tradition, the bride and groom sit before a sacred fire to participate in rituals called Saptapadi and Vivaha Sanskar. In this ceremony, the fire itself—which goes by the name Agni Sākshi, or “Agni” for short—is personified as a divine witness to the union. During the ceremony, a Hindu priest (called a “pandit”) chants Vedic mantras as the ceremony places out.

The components of the ceremony are as follows:

Kanyadaan: the father of the bride gives his daughter to the groom, transferring and entrusting the responsibility for her well-being and indeed her happiness to her husband.
Panigrahan: The groom takes the bride’s hand and promises love, duty, and respect in the life that they will share.
Agni Pradakshina / Mangal Pheras: The couple walks around the fire, typically 4 or 7 times, each lap symbolizing different aspects of life (e.g. dharma, artha, kama, moksha) and requiring them to make corresponding vows to each other.
Saptapadi: The couple takes seven steps together, making a sacred vow with each step to support one another physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This is the core of the ritual, after which the marriage is considered to be legally and spiritually binding.

This part of the ceremony was relatively low-key. Unlike western weddings, were the vows are said loud enough for the guests to hear them, the above process was performed in an intimate, un-amplified manner, solely amongst the couple, their families, and the priest. There were seats for the attendees to watch, but you’d really have to be an expert on Hindu weddings in order to follow this visually. I am admittedly fuzzy on the finer points of this ceremony, but I did see them doing laps around the fire at one point, so item #3 seems relatively cut and dry.

The temperature in the Rajasthani desert was dropping rapidly, so some of us popped back to our rooms to grab our coats. Then, hot Indian tea in-hand, we watched our friend get married. It was lovely.

Eventually, it was pushing midnight and the ceremony was still going. There is supposedly a final piece to this ceremony where there is an emotional farewell (Bidaai) … but, unfortunately, ya boi had a FLIGHT TO CATCH. The wedding had a 24-hour help desk with a team of staff there to tend to our every need, so when the time came, I was sadly whisked away, back to the Jaipur airport to catch a 3am flight. 🫠

I was really frustrated to be leaving early, but even more thankful that I’d made this trip happen in the first place.

Video & Photo Highlights

Now that we’ve made it through the full chronology of events, I’d like to share a little video I made where I compiled some of my favorite moments from the wedding. It was all shot on my iPhone, so the quality won’t be the best, but I hope it captures some of the magic of these couple days. Each of the songs this video were actually blasted into my ears at a thousand decibels at some point in this wedding… and subsequently Shazam’d by yours truly.

In the video, you may have noticed a paparazzi quantity of photographers in the background of every shot. I asked, and it turns out that I’m allowed to share some of their photos! Again, everything above was shot on my phone, so let’s check out some professional-quality, high-def pictures. Here are a few of my favorite shots from them!

And then, just as abruptly as I’d been dropped into this Indian fairy tale, I was removed. Mere hours after these photos were taken, I was on the second leg of my journey back, on a plane from Abu Dhabi to London, trying to cling to the afterglow of this experience by watching a Bollywood movie. I watched Dream Girl 2 (basically the Indian Mrs. Doubtfire) with subtitles… and soon I was face-down on my bed back in London.