Most of you may have seen a Hindu marriage in a Hindi Movie-just to fill in the blanks for people who are interested to know a bit more:
Mehndi day- women, friends & relatives are invited to the brides side and Mehndi is applied on hands & feet (by proffessional Mehndi applying ladies). A dholki & spoon is used for the singing and dancing.
Depending on the family traditons: singing & dancing goes on for a few days before the wedding. With Dholki and spoon being tapped on the dholki. Lathe di chaddeer ute lapati rang mai ya, old & new songs are sung.
Wedding Day: Brides wear red-Ghagara is most common dress. Women from the grooms side, bathe & dress the bride and bring Jewellary to put on the bride.
Groom-generally wear a suit (in the cities). The groom comes on a while female horse wearing a pagri on his head and heaps of garlands around the shoulders.
There is a band ahead playing the latest movie songs and between them the grooms friends and relatives dance about. Notes are waved around, in front of the band people and dholki wallas to encourage them to play louder and earn the cash. !! Change is also thrown behind the Barat for the poor to pick up.
Wedding: Bride & Groom sit next to each other, and a Pandit then goes about the prayers and slowly with each step the wood is stacked up, the ghee put on the wood pieces and finally the fire is lit. The Bride throws flower petals, rice etc into
the fire. After that within the prayers vows are taken and after each vow both the bride/groom have to go around the fire. The bride & groom are tied together by a chuni so they walk together during the vows.
Yes there will be some changes between North and South Hindu marriages. Though they all take vows by going around the fire.
After the wedding: all the young girls usually hide the grooms shoes and ask the groom to pay them money!!
There is a Dinner before the actual weeding . The Grooms (Barati's) side is asked to eat first-as the guests.
Culture or bad manners, I can never understand why people just charge towards the food tables. They overfill their plates & so much of food is wasted !!
Yeah..there are differences. Actually...all the different ethnic groups in India have their own traditions. I'm talking about cultural practices.
However, religious ceremonies vary by the caste system. For example, only Brahmins are allowed to conduct the Arya Samaj marriage. Each ceremony is different..according to the caste in which the couple belongs to. Still, certain things will remain the same..such as..the exchange of flower garlands..and the fire ritual.
what happens in a brahmin wedding can a dalit solemnize a brahmin wedding.if caste are social groupings only. then why a pandit is only brahmin or a dalit can be a pandit as well.But the hindu wedding is in sanskrit and only the brahmins know it or a dalit can also learn it without being punished for listening to the pandits.
Malhot..this isn't true. Nevermind...this was how my family members and the pandit who performs the weddings ( I just went to two weddings and an engagement pooja over the summer)..this is how they explained it to me..because I was curious to know..since the groom's side was not brahmin..but because the bride was..they made him an honorary Arya Putra for the day ..but many Brahmin priests refuse to do this. I'm just going by that. I also took some vedic heritage classes when I was younger (like really young)..and when we discussed the caste system..my guru had also informed us of how different castes perform their ceremonies (marriage..new house pooja..baby shower...etc) differently...and i know we DEFINITELY discussed marriage. I'm not trying to get smart and demean hindus..I'm just sharing the information I was given.
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Mehndi day- women, friends & relatives are invited to the brides side and Mehndi is applied on hands & feet (by proffessional Mehndi applying ladies). A dholki & spoon is used for the singing and dancing.
Depending on the family traditons: singing & dancing goes on for a few days before the wedding. With Dholki and spoon being tapped on the dholki. Lathe di chaddeer ute lapati rang mai ya, old & new songs are sung.
Wedding Day: Brides wear red-Ghagara is most common dress. Women from the grooms side, bathe & dress the bride and bring Jewellary to put on the bride.
Groom-generally wear a suit (in the cities). The groom comes on a while female horse wearing a pagri on his head and heaps of garlands around the shoulders.
There is a band ahead playing the latest movie songs and between them the grooms friends and relatives dance about. Notes are waved around, in front of the band people and dholki wallas to encourage them to play louder and earn the cash. !! Change is also thrown behind the Barat for the poor to pick up.
Wedding: Bride & Groom sit next to each other, and a Pandit then goes about the prayers and slowly with each step the wood is stacked up, the ghee put on the wood pieces and finally the fire is lit. The Bride throws flower petals, rice etc into
the fire. After that within the prayers vows are taken and after each vow both the bride/groom have to go around the fire. The bride & groom are tied together by a chuni so they walk together during the vows.
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Are you from Indian Punjab?
All the traditions are EXACTLY the same on our side of the border as well, except the religious one where instead of a Pundit and Sacred Fire we have an Imam reciting from the Qur'aan, saying a Prayer and then solemnising the wedding after the bride and groom have accepted each other as husabnd and wife, we have a 'Mandap' for this too. I suppose the religious part of the wedding is the only bit which is different, Sikhs have their four laps around the GGS, Hindus the Fire and Muslims the Sermon. We also have a Waleemah/Reception hosted by the grooms side usually the day after the wedding.
I don’t know man, it doesn’t sound too far fetched..
There’s two Indian/Hindu lads at work, and the “high caste” one wouldn’t even sit at the same table as the “low caste” one or eat food prepared by him (the “low caste” one works in the catering department). A Gora said to me “if you Asians even discrimnate amongst yourselves how can you expect us to be any better and not racist?”
minus the pandit scene, the rice and the phere…paki weddings are pretty much the same. usually before the mehendi we have the ‘nikah’ ceremony which is basically the “islamic marriage”…and the rest are all customs borrowed from our hindu brothers …
Rasme-Henna/Mehndi actually started in the Middle East and was brought to the Subcontinent by Muslims.
The rest of the traditions are the same because our people are ethnically the same, nothing is borrowed from anyone, when we became Muslim we still kept our cultural traditions…
oh!