Jeewan and Binitas wedding

We had the privledge of attending a friends wedding a few weeks ago. We know the groom as he goes to our church and the father of the bride is Mark's new boss. 

 

 People waiting at the grooms house and go in a procession to the church together. The wedding is always held in the brides house or in this case it was the brides home church. There is a grand procession as the groom is taken to the wedding.

The father of the groom who was very very proud

The wedding car

This is the entrance tent to the wedding venue.
The sign says 'welcome'

The bride not only gets married but she leaves her parents family and house and moves to the grooms house. In most cases she is then under the control of the mother and law and sometimes this can be a slave like relationship. In this case it won't be too bad and it was a love marriage so she knows the person married and was happy, and the family isn't harsh family but also very very sad about the farewells. The mix of joy and sorrow was hard to watch.

The vows are being said. They were very very similar to the wedding vows that we said to each other and you really didn't need to have much nepali to understand what was going on.

Once the vows were said, malas or flower garlands and rings were exchanged. There was no kiss of the bride but there was an unveiling.

Love the cellphone in this picture. It was a relief to us to see her happy after the wedding while they were greeting guests.

It is expected that you get very dressed up for a wedding. Jo spent a lot of time and money buying a jilly milly (glittery) sari, bracelets, shoes, makeup etc.

Looking at part of the food/entrance tent. Once the wedding is over the food is served. Unlike NZ there is generally an open invitation to everyone and most people seem to come for the food and leave again. Over 1000 were expected for food.

All the expats all dressed up in our saris! Mark had to leave early but Jo stayed on for food, the farewell of the bride from her family and church (gut wrenching) and then went with the bride and groom back to their house. Jo left but we understood that the grooms party (party at the grooms house that the brides family doesn't attend) went well into the night.