The end of August saw two good friends of mine come and visit from Seattle! The first two! Now I know Courtney from when she used to work at the World Affairs Council and I served on the young professionals board. For the lovely couple, India served as their midway stop on an around the world trip.
They stopped in South Africa first to see family members of Sebastien's and then went on to Japan after India to see friends of Courtney's from when she lived there a few years ago. I got to see them before and after their one week trip through Rajasthan. Thanks for coming Court and Sebastien!
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Then came the Hindi wedding we'd all been waiting for. Back at the beginning of August, my friend Andrea and her boyfriend/fiance, Shivam, had a Christian wedding back in Colorado. Three weeks later, they came out to Jaipur, Rajasthan, India to have a Rajasthani wedding with all of Shiv's family and friends. You may think what does "all of Shiv's family and friends" mean? Well, it meant his family only sent out roughly 1,500 invitations.
The days before the wedding were pretty laid back. Every meal of the day together. Time in between meals were spent at the pool, in our rooms, or doing a little shopping sight seeing around Jaipur.
Along with Andrea's parents, her grandmother, aunt, friend, Rene, from Capetown, South Africa and Tesia, our friend from PLU, came out to be a part of the Hindi wedding experience. In all, Shiv and Dre had people attend the wedding from the USA, Greece, South Africa and Afghanistan. Below, Tesia got to try her first "lassi", a sweet, creamy milkshake-type drink minus the ice cream.
Some even got "henna-ed". I even let myself join in the henna party.
One of our free days took us to Amber palace where some elephants were nice enough to carry us up the hill to the palace entrance.
The white cloth wrapped around my leg below is actually not what it looks like, India's latest fashion statement, but instead a bandage that was protecting a pretty bad burn that I incured a week before on the exhaust pipe of Jose's motorcycle. People asked "what happened?" and I would launch into the story and with (seriously) every Indian person I told the story too, they replied by saying, "Oh, yeah, I did that once also." Even the two women in saris who I met the morning of the wedding. 
The day of the wedding had multiple pre-wedding ceremonies, most of which only involved Shiv, because he's Hindi and Andrea is not. If Dre' would have been Hindi also, her family would have done many of the same rituals with her.
This is Shiv before the wedding: being smeared with talcum all over his body by his aunts.
This is Andrea before the wedding. Doesn't she look excited to get married in front of 1,500 people!
As Andrea got whisked away to get ready for the ceremony, since she enters separately from Shivam, I got to hang out with Shiv's huge family as the procession to the wedding venue began. He started by taking this horse to the local temple.
Then we all took a chartered bus to a huge traffic circle that is in downtown Jaipur and right outside the wedding venue. We spent the next hour in a procession around this traffic circle - Shiv in the back on his horse, while a band plays, many men hold these big lights on their shoulders forming two columns and in between these two columns of men are all of Shiv's friends and family. That is where all the dancing happened. And not dancing that you or I would probably know back in the USA. This was true Hindi dancing. So fun and unique to other types of dancing.
The dancing procession around the traffic circle will be one of my lasting memories of the wedding.
After Shiv arrived, about 10 minutes later, the bride arrived, accompanied by her mother and one of Shiv's family members.
The wedding itself consisted of Shiv and Dre sitting under a canopy performing a number of rituals, many of which Shiv doesn't even understand their exact meaning, however, they are tradition. They are officially considered "married" when they walk together around a small fire, which consists of cow dung being burnt, four times. Below, I actually got to step in and take the place of Andrea's brother, who couldn't attend. Very cool.
The happy couple with both sets of parents.
The happy couple before during the wedding.
The happy(ier) couple after the wedding.
And what would a true Rajasthani wedding be without Greek wedding dancing in our rooms later in the night?
(The group of friends that I play ultimate frisbee with on Saturdays)