The bride wore an elaborate gold-trimmed red gown. The groom’s embroidered silk outfit was layered with a matching cream coat, sash, and symbolic dagger. His groomsmen wore Western sport coats over dara sawals and topi hats.
The couple sat cross-legged beside a small fire representing purity and acting as a divine witness to the marriage vows.
The first commonality I noticed between the wedding we just attended in Nepal and our own long-ago one was the smog obscuring the Himalayas. The San Gabriel Mountains had likewise hidden our wedding day.
But soon I recognized an overarching commonality: the beauty of ritual drawing together two lives and two families.
The recent wedding celebrated the union of Nibesh and Ultha, UCSB alums from Nepal whom my husband had served and befriended as the career development manager for the Master of Technology Management degree program.
The nuptials featured three days of wedding celebrations, plus the incredible warmth and welcoming of their Nepalese families and friends.
Festivities began the night before the wedding with Sangeet. The bride and groom shared a romantic dance, after which assorted family and friends performed short, choreographed dances to honor and entertain them.
The bride’s parents and groom’s parents danced playfully, moving comfortably as perhaps they were recalling their own weddings.
A toddler was one of the darlings of the party, dressed in a miniature-sized dara sawal and toy dagger. When his relatives coaxed him onto the floor to dance with his cousin, however, his weapon failed to provide him courage: he darted for his parents’ cover.
The morning of the wedding I carried my sari to the groom’s sister-in-law, who had offered to help me dress. Dixya and her mother wrapped and tucked my beautiful pink and gold sari fabric.
They worked in the semi-darkness, with her now-famous toddler asleep on the bed. In the communal dressing and family togetherness I found myself remembering my bridesmaids hovering and helping me on my wedding day.
The wedding celebration began with the Janti: the arrival of the groom and his wedding procession accompanied by music and dancing.
The bride’s and groom’s parents greeted guests by draping us with red sashes and applying our foreheads with tika. This mixture of rice, yogurt and vermillion symbolizes blessing, good fortune and protection.
Hindu wedding ceremonies typically last six to eight hours, but Nibesh and Ultha kept theirs closer to two hours.
They chose the Swayambar – a ritual wherein the bride and groom publicly accept one another; Adorning the Bride (Chura Pate Laune); and Taking the Sacred Seat (Jagya Ma Basne).
Prayers for Strength were followed by Sindhur Halne, the Sacred Mark of Marriage, where the groom placed sindur – a vermillion powder – along the parting of the bride’s hair.
One of the rituals that struck me as similar to Christian weddings was Moving Forward Together (Thau Sarne).
In Thau Sarne, the priest placed the couple’s hands on top of each other’s to perform the Pooja (worship) together as a unit.
This reminded me of our own ceremony, where one of the final rituals involved the priest using a stole to wrap our hands together, pronouncing, “Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.”
Bookending the solemn rituals were playful games. Read here for a peek at the shoe-stealing tradition (Joota Chupai).
At the conclusion of the ceremony was a game involving supari (betel nut) which reminded guests that the sacredness of marriage is also built on “friendship, joy, and shared happiness.”
Americans, with our desire to be a melting pot or salad bowl, are less adept at valuing ritual. But we have them – and can create more.
Many of us with faith traditions attend church, mosque, or synagogue, where ritual is often key. Others relish stories around the dinner table, watch a Sunday night movie, wash dishes together, share bedtime stories, or enjoy family jokes.
Other rituals can evolve with friends: neighborhood games like baseball, basketball, or flag football, or organized versions of the same. Bagging lunches for the homeless, standing up and marching for just causes, and celebrating and grieving with neighbors in their successes and sorrows.
What is a wedding for? It may be too lofty to say that marriage brings a couple into the sacred community of every couple since marriage began. But it is a worthy goal.
Ritual calls upon the wisdom of those who have gone before. Ritual reminds us we are all in this together, through the years.