An Indian wedding in Maryland, Part 1

First day of the wedding down. Yesterday was as chaotic, hysterical, fun, colorful, hot as hell, and loud as I thought it would be. The evening was the so-called Wedding Sangeet--or an Indian wedding party prior to the wedding party. One thing is for sure, Indians love to party (which is yet another reason why I married one of them). It was also the night when they apply Mehendi, the customary henna painting of the hands and feet of the bride and female relatives, and frankly, everyone else who wants to jump on the wedding bandwagon. The bride herself spent over 3 hours being painted, and the rest of the night holding her hands out to dry. Beauty requires sacrifices! I got some neat squiggles on the hands. I deserve it--I spent an hour in the blazing 100+ degree mid-day heat sticking cut flowers in the ground in the garden "to look natural."
It was held at the house of the bride's parents (Diplomat's Aunt and Uncle), and they had about 60 guests or so. You can never really understand what that exactly means until you have been to an Indian party of expats. It was one fabulous, hot affair. The aunties sit together in a big circle, eat massive quantities of food and giggle inanely constantly. The men sit in a separate circle, leaning backwards, big bellies shaking from laughter. (One thing always amuses me at these affairs--alcohol is purchased in small quantities because "we don't drink." But literally minutes into the affair, all of the aunties can been seen holding full glasses of wine, their giggles audibly louder.) Everyone is singing, laughing, eating reasonably spiced food, wearing sarees in all colors of the rainbow, blessings are issued left and right, along with constant boasting of what their sons and daughters have achieved, to which Ivy league schools they have gone, who has become a doctor, investment banker or any other banker, engineer, architect or accountant (nothing less than that!), how many apartments or cars have been purchased and so on and so on. I freely admit that the Diplomat and I deserted Son to play in the garden among the guests while we were cozying up to the Proseco and watching the madness. Despite the 90+ degree heat, we had a fabulous time.

Today did not start so well, I am afraid. First, the Diplomat woke me and Son up at 8 am (we went to bed at 1 am) because his excellency wanted to play tennis, which meant going to his aunt's house. Then, when I was trying to transfer all of wedding party pictures, I deleted them by mistake. Then, on cue, Son peed in his pants. And refused to eat his breakfast. And yelled for 25 mins in the car demanding his binky, while I was trying frantically to recover the lost pictures on my computer, perched precariously on my knees in the passenger seat. All the while I am trying to look cool and poised and super put together, because I am one cool mom!

We will soon leave for the wedding rehearsal, followed by a clambake dinner. To be continued...