The Wedding Crashers

Guests enter through a fabric created hall, with wide, low bowls filled with candles and rose petals. They pass hundreds
of lit votive candles placed on tiers in Nek Chand sculptures and then enter the great hall at a mosaic pool filled with flower tops and rose petals and lit votive candles.

All the sculptures were individually lit, like these cement
trees/ elephant shaped designs.

It is wedding season in India right now, and that means weddings at the Nek Chand Rock Garden. So far, there was one wedding during the weekend we went to Amristar, and I missed it. However, we got wind that there was a wedding planned for Saturday night and that there would be lots of food. And if you have ever heard anything about an Indian wedding, then you know what a spectacle they can be.

And any chance we have to avoid eating the same meal every meal that they serve us in Tiffens (metal tins) is an invitation to crash from our point of view. Besides, Nek Chand told us we could go, so we had the official stamp of approval. So Sarah, Adam, Alan and I were the only westerners to crash the wedding and it was oh, so worth it. 

This is one of the larger stations that you encounter as you walk into the central area of the wedding floor. You pick up your plates, utensils and napkin and then wander around 30 - 40 food stations.

This was a central tent, under which guests sat and talked, 
ate and socialized

wedding guests who wanted their picture taken by a westerner - no matter we don't know one another

(L-R) Alan, Sarah and Adam

At western weddings, everyone seems to be aware of strangers in their midst. Not so in an Indian wedding. They are affairs of gargantuan proportions, more like a convention than a family wedding. Hundreds of people attend to eat, dance and feast. There is more food than one could possibly consumer, and they go on for hour after hour.

Sarah and I at the end of the evening. 
Notice her hand beaded dress.

By our standards, the wedding cake is small. It is an incidental part of an Indian wedding.

The bride and groom will sit in this settee all night to receive their guests who will quietly hand them money or gifts and take a picture with the lovely couple. The settee is on a stage, with rows and rows of couches in front of it, so that family and friends may watch the procession of greetings. The flowers are fresh.

waiter serving drinks to guests sitting in couches watching newlyweds on stage to receive gifts and well wishers from the receiving lines.

It is more like being in the midst of a large cruise ship evening than a wedding. No one makes any central welcomes or announcements. It is difficult to tell who the central players are outside the bride and groom.

The park is almost entirely hidden for the night by the yards and yards of fabrics that form an hexagonal barrier and private space. Hundreds of rugs are laid on the concrete floor to create a homey impression.

As the evening wears on, children and adults gravitate to the 30 ft high swings that are anchored in the center of the arches. This little girl wears her fanciest party dress while her brother looks on from the swing behind.

Hundreds of pin lights give the park the feel of being in a night time fantasy . Nek Chand's 10 ft. mosaic horses sit atop this fantasy and provide a magnificent backdrop to the night.

Promptly at 11pm, the band stopped playing and the workers whisked tables out from under guests to signal the event was over. The bride and groom are escorted from the stage, and as quickly as the wedding ball began, it ended. 

Everything is packed up and put into hundreds of trunks, carried out and as quickly as the magic begins, the park returned to its natural self to spend the rest of the night in quiet.

We sneak out the back from Cinderella's  ball and are greeted by the feral dogs looking for scraps. The wedding crashers go home full of good food and heads full of colorful visions. 

My mother would have loved it!