April 27, 2008
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More Wedding Days
In case you're wondering why I took nearly two weeks to update... Shortly after I got back from Nashville, I got pretty sick and didn't feel like doing much of anything. Then, just when I'm getting better, my computer dies on me.
I'm feeling fine now, and I have a new computer. But, I said I'd update about the wedding, so I'll get to the rest of that stuff later this week.
Background
It was my first cousin, S, who got married. About a month before the wedding, she asks me if I'd be willing to emcee the main recepetion. Of course I'm happy to oblige, so I help her with scheduling out and organizing the main reception.
It actually went by really well. I mean, as a culture we have big problems with being on-time. But, that day, stuff was scheduled to start at 12:30 and it started only at 12:45. We intended on serving lunch at 1:15, and served it at 1:20. We planned to have some of the bride and groom's friends speak at 2:30, and they spoke at 2:30. We had the room until 5:00, and we cleared out at 5:00.
So, basically, everything went off perfectly. I'm mostly happy that the bride and groom seemed to enjoy it all.
First Day
The first day (Friday) we had a Bengali ceremony called a gayeholud. This is always a fun part of the celebrations, usually very close with a smaller audience (like the immediate family, maybe some very close friends as well). Check the wikipedia link for more, but basically the idea is to bring the family of both sides together. Each side feeds the bride and groom some sweets, applies a little turmeric paste to their foreheads/cheeks, that kind of thing. Here's a shot:
They also did a second nikah during this. The nikah is the affirmation of the actual marriage contract (like your "I do"s). Normally, the gayeholud is an entirely cultural thing, not necessarily religious, and the nikah is done on a separate day. To sort of consolidate things, part of the day was devoted to doing this. I also say "second" nikah, since they already had another one a few months ago in Kenya; this was more so that all the family here would be able to see it.
Also, my mother sort of emceed the gayeholud ceremony. I think these organizational things may run in the family.
Second Day
The second day, I spent a bit of time taking my cousin and my sister to their hair/makeup appointments, and spent some time getting the layout of the place the reception would be held and talking with some of the catering and hotel staff about how we wanted to do things. To get to the point, even though a lot of people arrived late (er, on-time by Desi standards, but late by normal standards, you know), everything started off well and went off without a problem.
One part of the reception is the rusmah, another Bengali / Indian thing, also called the 'mirror-looking ceremony'. I mentioned this in another wedding I attended a couple years ago (link here). One of my older cousins directed it and explained everything for the audience, while the parents of the bride and groom watched on either side:
I think my cousin was a tad nervous during this, though understandably so:
"What do you see in your husband?"
S: Um.. a wonderful man... A potential spou--wait, no, not 'potential' anymore...Usually what's said is something a bit sweet but intentionally a bit cheesy.
Anyway, after that and after lunch, some of the bride and groom's friends got up to speak. I tried to encourage a few of them who were still a little unsure of what to say to just speak with sincerity. In general, at something like this, it's much better to be sincere than to be eloquent.
We also had a few of our other friends and relatives perform. Another of my older cousins (I have like 50-some cousins, mind you) sang two traditional Bengali songs. Our neice (another cousin's daughter in this cause) performed a dance. And, lastly, my mother's piano teacher performed three pieces; two contemporary new age ones, and one classical piece by Chopin.
We finally had the cake-cutting right at 4:00. After that was pictures. Probably the highlight of that was when we had all the cousins, cousins' spouses, and cousins' children up on stage. Like, all 51 or so of us. I'm sure we broke some fire safety code in there. Afterwards
That evening, my mother also invited a lot of people over to our place. I was up for muc of that, but around 10PM or so I just clocked out and had to rest. I don't remember a whole lot of that night besides feeling really tired.
Oh yeah, it was my birthday the day after, too. Not much of a big deal, though. 
But, that's all. A lot's happened in the last week, what with my computer dying and all. I'll talk more about that later this week. I hope... KF
