SATURDAY. Wedding day.

So we dressed in our transported finery and wandered down the corridor to the bride’s room for the 9.30am start of photos.

Photos.

This is the land that invented bollywood.

There were half a dozen guys in the room, 4 with cameras plus a couple of assistants, light stands, reflectors, all kinds of things. Many and various photos were taken, video shot, poses posed. Carol is a beautiful woman by any caucasian standards, and had carefully kept out of the sun for months to ensure her skin was pale to increase her perceived beauty by Indian standards. I suspect the guys were working overtime to get a shot that would promote their business with an unusually attractive subject.

Then the local priest from the Mar-Thom Syrian church in which the wedding would take place came along to pray a blessing on the wedding. The Mar-Thom appear at first glance to be a little like the eastern orthodox with a substantial amount of Indian culture stirred in. (After a little research I’d say that’s probably not too far from the truth, but with their own connection back to early Christianity).

On to the church.

Dressed in suit and tie, the day was meltingly hot, though the cars were at least air-conditioned.

Unlike the church.

We left our shoes outside and wandered in. I mentioned that the fans were off to Chris and someone overheard & kindly turned them on. The wedding service was mostly conducted by singing the words written in the order of service, generally in English, but partially in Malayalam (local language) and perhaps in Syriac at times? There’s some similarities and many differences to a British wedding that I’ll not go into here, where local practice and Christian stuff is mixed together.

Off to a reception (a small affair Carol said, only around 250 people) the purpose of appeared primarily to have photographs taken of every guest with the bride and groom, and to eat. The food was excellent, based on local specialities. Food there runs from spicy to very hot, and this covered much of that range. Carol had a clothing change, from her white wedding dress to a special red and gold wedding sari for this, transforming from a western-looking bride to one that was fully Indian. Finally back to the hotel for a rest before the next part of the wedding celebration.

The final evening reception was somewhat delayed due to rain, making the planned outdoor festivities impossible. We arrived in the hotel reception at 6pm ready for transfer, and then waited. After a bit Carol and her new husband Joe arrived, having just finished the photos, then disappeared upstairs for more than an hour to put on her 3^rd wedding outfit of the day – a gold north Indian style outfit with separate top, shawl and heavy pleated skirt. The couple and her parents reappeared explaining the reasons for the delay, and we all then transferred to the reception together.

This should have had a friend of the couple providing music through the evening but he’d been unable to come, so a friend and neighbour of the grooms family stepped into the gap with his family. Carol had also kindly mentioned to the grooms father that I played guitar and might do a turn – dobbed in by a friend! The music was a mix of piano pieces, a couple of worship songs from the last 20 years (NOT what we expected) and some vocals over backing tracks of various kinds including a turn from the groom. There was a slow dance, followed by a bit of formation Macarena in best Bollywood style that Chris was able to join in.

Things went quiet and I wandered over to talk with the guy who’d been singing to see if there was anything we could do together. He had a book of older worship songs, all written out by hand, so we picked a couple, sorted out a key they could be sung in, and I played along and sang a little while he sang main vocals. Finally Chris & the others came over, having found a (terribly slow) music-only backing track for 10,000 reasons that we sang together. Despite terrible singing and playing (the guitar was a beast to play, needing a good set up) our efforts seemed appreciated, and we were thanked by both sets of parents.

Stepping back a little, I’ve been fairly down-beat about the wedding, travel and everything, and that’s partly a reflection of not being well for some of the trip, together with a desire to just record what we did or didn’t do. The wedding was good and, it was great to see Carol finally get to marry after all the planning & hard work of the last few months. People were also enormously kind and welcoming to us, and we really appreciated that.

We made it back to our hotel & slept a bit.