When my parents got married 8 people attended.. When I attended an Indian wedding in London last weekend +400 people did. Huge difference! Here’s what an Indian Wedding is like!

I still have this specific Indian wedding on my mind…

The address of the venue was Hilton Hotel, London Bankside, which is right in the center of London.

Should I go or not?

I talked to the groom Hemal, whom I traveled a lot of Brazil with, about coming to his wedding last year, but I wasn’t sure if I was able to go, because of my tight travel schedule in order to visit a lot of new countries in 2019. Hemal told me several times: “It’s an experience you won’t die without.” He got me right there, as extraordinary experiences are what I live for, so that was enough said!

Cheap Ryanair flight tickets to London booked immediately after our conversation. Off to London!

The Wedding Day Was Now

5 months later and the Wedding Day was finally here.

I didn’t get much sleep the night before, because I literally had the highest level of excitement: I was about to attend an Indian Wedding, which I heard so much crazy stuff about.

I brought a big Danish gift with necklaces and bracelets for the bride, some Danish specialities and an old travel memory to Hemal from when we travel around Brazil together! I thought it was a great gift, but it showed up ALL other guests brought letters and paper gifts to the wedding (the invitation saying ‘kindly no boxed gifts’), made me look a bit stupid.

Why do I never read the small print? Anyway….

7 Days Wedding

The Indian Wedding had been going on for 6 days and I came on the last day where the official ceremony was for family and friends. Time for the official marriage, before husband and wife were off for honeymoon together as Mr. and Mrs. Pandya!

In the early morning we started getting in our traditional Indian outfits and then waited for the groom to show up. I met a lot of Hemal’s brothers and close family and they were all extremely welcoming and happy for me to join the wedding.

The Schedule

The schedule for the Indian Wedding:

• Groom’s arrival 9:00 am
• Breakfast 9.30 am
• Wedding Ceremony 10.00 am
• Drinks and reception 5.30 pm
• Indian dinner 6.45 pm
• Carry on and celebrate until midnight

It looked as a pretty normal wedding for a westener like me at first sight, but I quickly realized this was far from normal.

The groom arrived in a Bentley, standing out of the car rooftop, in the streets of London, with all of the guests following the car in traditional clothing, dancing and clapping along the way, and with one Indian guy playing the drum, the beat of a dhol, which is an Indian drum. I’m not sure what the Londoners were thinking, but it was a lot of fun!

After playing around in the streets for 30 minutes, we came in and had a delicious breakfast and I got to talk a bit with Hemal who told his friends: “Last time I saw this guy was on Copacabana Beach!” Hilarious!

The Ceremony

400 guests were ready for the huge ceremony. Now it was the time..

The priest did the introduction and then Hemal came in with his most important family members after him and went up to the stage. After a while we saw the bride for the first time and she came in with a huge amount of jewelry on and in a beautiful dress. Scenes taking out of a banger Bollywood Movie!

The bride and her family greeted the groom, and the couple then exchanged floral garlands to wear around their necks to symbolize their acceptance of each other.

For the ceremony, the priest, groom, bride and bride’s parents were sitting beneath a mandap, which is a temple porch. The ceremony started off with the kanya daan, in which the bride’s parents give her away. Then the couple joined hands and circles around a small, enclosed fire (the agni) in a ritual called the mangal phera.

At last the couple took the saptapadi, or seven steps, as they vow to support each other and live happily together. Finally, Hemal (the groom) applied a red powder to the center of the bride’s forehead and tied a black beaded necklace around her neck, symbolizing she’s now a married woman. Beautiful!

In The Evening

After a little mid-day break, people came to the reception in the evening and had some drinks and Indian snacks. I had to be extra careful with the snacks, some of them were veeery spicy indeed.

We then went into a new stunning hall and had dinner. Family members gave speeches for the groom and the bride. Hemal held an amazing speech and even gave me a shoutout saying: “We have people flying in from all over the World today and my friend Gus is here, who I last saw in Copacabana Beach.. He just flew in from Iraq!” followed by applause.. Just a very small thing in a truly touching speech!

The End Of An Amazing Day

At last we went to the dance floor until midnight with a hired DJ setting fire to the dancefloor with mostly Indian bangers. Out of a sudden Hemal was DJ’ing and took the mic and said: “I f*cking love my wife,” and the dancefloor went absolutely nuts.

I’m so happy I took the decision to attend a proper Indian wedding! I will always remember the memories we created together in Brazil, now it’s a new chapter for you and time to create some beautiful memories with your wife.

And to all of you who’re still reading along, if you have the chance to go to an Indian wedding, don’t think twice. Just go 😉

– Gustav

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