Fortunately, I woke up to room service. So I ate my eggs and wheat toast and quickly dressed for Temple.
When I arrived Moxi was still getting ready. Since we were still unable to wash our hands (no water until Friday night at the earliest!), and since I only had one figure mehendi'd on each hand, I had to put Moxi's contacts in her eyes. On her eyeballs. Yes, I love this woman.
She looked beautiful, of course, but the ceremony wasn't exactly what I expected. For example, when it began, no one stopped talking. A few people sat down in the chairs provided, but the chatter didn't cease. In fact it just got louder now that people had to talk over the priest.
Of course, I was in the front row glued to the ceremony wondering what in the world was going on. Fortunately, Moxi's Uncle (my favorite one) sat down next to me and began to interpret. This was a blessing ceremony. Currently, the priest was passing a blessing onto Moxi's sister and brother in law who would then pass it on to them.
Shraddha and Shawn and the priest were appeasing the inner demons, beseeching them to allow peace and harmony in all the cosmos to reign until at least after Moxi and Kevin were married. I sort of got a little bored there for a while and snapped these great shots.
About half an hour later, Moxi and Kevin joined the ceremony. They first had to go upstairs to the room where all the gods were kept and prayed with her parents. Then they returned and the second part of the blessing began.
And then their whole family (both sides and extended) got on the stage with them for the end of the ceremony. And of course, there were more presents bestowed on the couple.
Note to self: Marry a Hindu.
Friends began arriving as the ceremony ended including a friend from St Jo Mo: Ryan Crie,
and everyone ate lunch together before heading back to the hotel.
After a brief nap, (I actually just got on the internet I think), we were summoned to the ballroom for the rehearsal. I kid you not, there were three people there when I arrived. I accepted a glass of champaigne from the hotel staff there waiting on us and waited for the Indians to show up. As they put it, we were all stuck on IST: Indian Standard Time. 45 minutes later, we walked through the ceremony and headed to the boat.
That's right. They're rehearsal dinner was on a boat that boated around the Baltimore harbor for the evening.
AWESOME!
There I saw more old friends including Rachel Young and her husband Eric Runde (not actually pictured below) and Jessica Novak!
Several Indian families from St. Joseph had flown in and I saw Ashish and Neeley's parents. For this evening, I had asked Moxi if she wanted me in Indian or Western dress. She chose an American dress I had brought and I borrowed her sister's engagement jewelry to wear. BEAUTIFUL!
Because I didn't have any cash and I was with some over-zealous bridesmaids, we WALKED from the boat back to the hotel. And people, you should have seen the heels i was in. Not one of my better moments.
Finally, Friday night, Ryan and I gathered together Moxi and Kevin to teach them how to dance. 11pm, teaching an already stressed out, going on seven days of wedding ceremony already, cranky lovebirds was not a thrill, but I'll be damned if their hard work and our gentle promptings didn't pay off because they got EVERY dance move right during their first dance... but that's Saturday night and I've gotten ahead of myself...
No comments:
Post a Comment