A picture of an Indian wedding has always been clear in my head. Not that I had a chance to visit it live before, but the amount of bollywood movies watched and pictures googled created a certain image in my head. A lot of gold and sometimes red, flowers in huge garlands, rose petals everywhere, plenty of music, dance, laughs and colours, colours, colours, colours! Food part was often skipped but it didn’t matter. Unbelievable beauty and colorfulness of the ceremony were the things that did. Crowds of people cheering an amazingly beautiful bride, all covered in gold and exotic flowers.
What I saw? Well, a sari of the bride was white, not red. There was no elephant. No bollywood music – but folk songs sang by women live instead. However the absence of these expected attributes didn’t make the wedding less elegant, symbolic and indeed fascinating.
You can see the images of the Assamese wedding in the gallery below.