Monsoon Wedding

Saturday night in Udaipur and with the full moon shining, I spruced myself up in my linen pants and shirt and headed towards the ferry. Lynne, Shannon and I had been invited to the monsoon wedding that has taken over the City Palace for the past few days. We were all so excited. Tonight was the final installment of the 3 day event - The Wedding Ceremony. It was being held at Jagmindir Palace a maginficent building in the middle of Lake Pichola.

As we arrived to catch the ferry, traditional Rajasthani musicians were playing their drums to welcome the groom and his family. The boat trip over to the palace was amazing. The boat was deocoratd with garlands of flowers and the whole palace was lit up with lights and coloured with flowers.


As we arrived we were greeted with musicians and were handed a corsage of orchards and a traditional Indian wedding gift, kind of like a bomboniera. A tika was placed on our forehead to mark the auspicious event.

The palace garden was boarded with 6 buffet areas and the tables set for around 600 guests. This was not a small wedding. The groom came from the 25th richest family in India and the bride from the 23rd biggest!


The food consisted of all vegetarian dishes from India, the Middle East, Mexico, Sth East Asia and even the Greece. Non-alcoholic drinks were only served and if you wanted something a little harder you had to make your way out of the garden and around the other side of the palace where a small bar was sectioned off. It wasn't specified but it seemed that only men were allowed in this area. Of course I couldn't resist but to take a look. I made some new friends as I sipped my vodka fresh lime soda and chatted to the cute Indian men dressed in their Kurtas.

The cermony was followed by professional photos and traditional Rajasthani dancers and musicians. It was truly the most maginficent wedding I've ever seen.




But don't go thinking that the bride and groom have had it easy. The gossip is that the couples parents didn't approve of their relationship as they are both from different casts. The groom from Rajasthan and the bride from Maharastra. It's hard to believe that in this day and age people are still so traditional. If it was a Greek family the parents would be over the moon that they are both from the same country let alone the same province. It took their parents only 6 years to approve the wedding. So the hopeless romantic in me couldn't help but think. Since it wasn't an arranged marriage and their families had all the money in the world, maybe true love still does exist.