Indian-American Wedding and more

This past weekend I flew to San Jose for one of senior accountant's wedding. Here is Abhay and his bride, Isabel. This was before the beginning of the ceremonies. Yes, ceremonies. Abhay is indian and Isabel is Hispanic-American, so they had a blended ceremony.








This first ceremony involved Abhay getting on a horse. He got on the horse 1/2 block away from his house. He had to hold a coconut while he rode up. When asked why he was holding the coconut he responded "I have no idea!" Everyone except the bride and her family travelled along with him to the house. There was indian music playing and a couple of people played instruments like a hand steel drum (like a tamborine), cymbols and shakers. I was prodded into dancing with the other women and it was fun, although I had to be careful because my back was hurting.


Here is Isabel waiting for Abhay to arrive.


















Once Abhay arrived, the bride and groom put beaded wreaths, which symbolized that they each gave each other the highest respect. After that, Abhay had to stand on a stool and the indian priest showed a platter with different symbolic items and he explained each one. It was very fascinating.







Then Kevin Hammond did the traditional American vow ceremony before the indian priest did the requisite indian ceremonies.


This is the part where Isabel goes away and they cover Abhay with a sheet until she comes up and surprise!


It was pretty hot out there, so it was a pleasant surprise when they started serving drinks (water and mango juice) and hors d'euvres (mixed nuts and cashew shortbread thingies).

The last ceremonies were in the house with a game for the bride and groom to play.

Chris Chapple, Abhay's good friend, drove me to the reception where I hung out for an hour or so while they set up for the cocktail/appetizer hour and the dinner. I had a great time getting to know Abhay's high school and college friends, who are all around my age. Dinner was delicious--but spicy! The naan was still in the oven, so we had to do without for 1/2 the meal. My tastebuds were saying "Whoa!"

I found out that indians really know how to party! When the dancing started everyone got up to dance and Abhay's parents really boogied down. Chris asked me to dance and I reminded him that my back was sore, but he said we could dance "mellow-like." We had a great time! Susan, Abhay's high school friend, joined us and we all danced for an hour (me definitely being low-key and watching my back pain).

Chris drove me to my hotel, which was really nice of him! Saved me cab money and the bore of a cab ride back with the cab driver. Instead, Chris and I talked about the food network and cooking and various other topics.

The next day I went to lunch with Lynn to Pizza Antica, where we shared a salad and a pizza. After lunch we went back to her house to meet her 5-month old daughter, Ivy. Her husband, Tim, was at home, too, watching football and monitoring his fantasy football league. Lynn, Ivy and I went to Willow Glen for frozen yogurt. Lynn and I used to go for frozen yogurt in college all the time. We'd have frozen yogurt after the walking class we took together and we would also go with our other roommates, Emily and Leanne to Heidi's Frozen Yogurt.