What does the 0 stand for?

The wedding ceremony was taking place at 0430 on Sunday morning. One of the holy men had decreed that was the best time for Pete and Sara to get married.

Personally I have a theory…and it involves fitting in as many ceremonies in one day so he can afford to pay his mobile bill.

I’m going to try and describe what happened now, based on the snippets that relatives told me in broken English and from what I gathered by watching.

The groom was waiting for the bride and shortly after she arrived looking radiant in green and gold he was loaded up with an umbrella (shelter), and fan (?), a cane (support) and flower garlands. He then had to leave the room telling the father he no longer wanted to marry his daughter and the family of the bride have to chase after him and beg him to come back. This is all done the accompaniment of a drum band.

When he comes back in the bride and groom have to exchange flower garlands (this is the equivalent of exchanging rings) then sit in a swing set surrounded by family (mostly hers). Here they are blessed by holy men and have their feet washed with honey milk by various members of both families. Then they have 30 rice balls (15 coloured with turmeric and 15 coloured with the red powder used for the red bindi) moved around their heads three time both clock wise and anti-clockwise to ward off the evil eye. After this is done they move to the stage area again for more blessings.

The blessings are done in front of fire, as the fire is God, therefore any promises made before fire cannot be broken. The whole ceremony was beautiful and towards the end, once again, both fathers had to invite us to eat breakfast ‘cause we didn’t want to miss anything.

After breakfast we were cleared for a few hours, so we returned to the room and crashed! ‘Cause I was wearing a sari I propped a pillow behind my back and sleep in a chair, Hubby took advantage of the lovely hard bed. It was 0730 and we slept til 9. Then returned downstairs as instructed. Nothing was happening til lunch, and it was to be casual. So back upstairs, sari off and bed til lunch.

At lunch, once again curry on a bed of banana leaf, the waiters didn’t bother givning us a spoon and fork. We had been accepted.