Today, Indians are scattered all over the globe, but most enjoy celebrating their wedding in a traditional way, regardless of where they live.

Usually spread across a number of days, Indian Hindu weddings are filled with colour, laughter, sweets and music, where family and friends are as much a part of the celebrations as the bride and groom.

The wedding ceremony itself depends on the preferences of the bride and groom, and also on what communities they belong to. Mostly conducted in the language of the Vedas, Sanskrit, the ceremony can be, at times, difficult to follow.

So before feeling your way through the noisy, colourful melee of rituals, here’s an idea of what to expect ...

Weddings in North Indian style, like Punjabi weddings, are fun-filled events with lots of dancing, music, rich food and often, alcohol. Weddings in South Indian style, like Tamil weddings -- very commonly seen in Singapore, in the Singapore Tamil community - traditionally tend to be more sober affairs.

Bride and Groom at South Indian wedding - common in Singapore

But as the lives from different communities melt together, most couples are opting to include the more fun elements of North Indian culture into their own celebrations. Cocktail parties to kick-start wedding celebrations, followed by ceremonies like the mehndi and the sangeet, are the most popular.

At the mehndi ceremony, conducted a few days before the wedding, a dark green paste of crushed henna leaves mixed with other herbs (and sometimes dyes) is applied as an intricate pattern on the bride’s hands and feet. Once dry, the paste is scraped away, leaving behind a deep red stain. It is believed that the deeper the red, the deeper the groom’s love for the bride. Wedding guests also decorate their hands with henna, and colourful bangles. Although this is traditionally a ceremony for women, men are now included and enjoy it as much as the women do.

Women after the mehndi ceremony

In many communities, the mehndi ceremony is precluded by a beautification ceremony for the bride (and sometimes even the groom), called the haldi ceremony. A turmeric paste is applied on the arms, legs and face, intended to smoothen skin and make it glow. The married women in the family take turns in rubbing in the paste and blessing the bride.

Following the events of the day comes the sangeet, a raucous party with dancing, alcohol, spicy food and music. Friends and family of the bride and groom will often choreograph dances set to popular Bollywood numbers to entertain the couple.

Often, a day or so before the wedding, there will be a ‘formal’ engagement, involving a verbal (or sometimes written) agreement between the families in front of a priest. The groom’s side then presents bride’s side gifts of clothes, sweets, fruits and flowers.

Wedding day
At North Indian-style weddings, the groom is welcomed into the wedding venue as he rides a heavily decorated horse (usually white) and is led by a crowd of his friends and family dancing around him.

Groom arriving on a horse

Although there is no horse at South Indian weddings, there is a formal welcome by the bride’s family outside the venue, which could be a marriage hall or a hotel. It is also not unusual to find South Indian weddings conducted inside Hindu temples -- like in Little India.

The wedding ceremony itself varies greatly from community to community. But common across all is the kanyaa daan, or ‘giving away’ of the bride. It is an elaborate ceremony with lots of theatrics included, performed by the bride’s father, in the presence of a large gathering. He symbolically asks the groom to accept his daughter in marriage, after extracting the promises of dharma (righteousness) artha (wealth) and kama (love).

During the ceremony, in some communities, the bride and groom are separated by a sacred cloth and are not allowed to view each other until they are pronounced as married. At others, they will sit side by side and go through the ceremony together.  And different though the rituals are, what ties these ceremonies together is the presence of fire.

In Hindu tradition, fire is thought to purify and destroy evil. The bride and groom will chant Vedic verses after the priest, with fire as a ‘witness’. The havan, located at the centre of the dais, receives offerings of ghee (clarified butter) with each chant, emitting thick wood smoke that stings the eyes and lingers in the air long after the ceremony is over. This smoke, filled with good vibrations and prayers, is thought to purify the air around the newlyweds.

The bride and groom making an offering to the fire at a North Indian Style wedding

The chants are followed by the saptapadi or pheras, which are the seven vows of marriage that the couple take together, while walking around the fire. Something akin to the Christian vows of ‘for richer, or for poorer’, the bride and groom promise to cherish each other, grow together and acquire happiness and harmony through mutual respect, understanding and love.

At the end
Happy and exhausted from several days of celebration, the wedding guests will gather one more time for the formal Reception. The newlyweds stand receiving all the guests, thanking them for coming. Lots of photographs are taken, posing and smiling for hours is expected.

As the guests begin to leave, the bride gets ready to say a formal goodbye to her family, amidst lots of tears and jokes. She is a woman with new responsibilities now, and officially belongs to another family.

And then, finally, the wedding is over.

* Missed the previous editions of Indian wedding etiquettes? Click here for more information!