Of Weddings and such things

The last month of the year and a few of the last year could be described, for a lot of people, as ‘marriage season’. Marriage season sees people of usually a particular range-of-age getting hitched. Some of those matches pending since a long time to be made, some highly anticipated, some surprising, yet none of them unwanted. Facebook has been filled with wedding pictures, few of them posted by enthusiastic friends who attended prior to the bride or groom doing so. All in all, a new course of life has set in for a lot of people. Well, isn’t that an integral part of life – changing course with someone by your side…

A wedding or marriage like we usually like calling in large swathes of our country involves plenty planning, exorbitant expenses, raucous relatives, mannequin make-ups, fatty food, vogue-less videos, and so on and so forth. Let’s visit or for many of you re-visit a few of them.

Wedding as they have always told are like Delhi ka laddoo; one who eats repents and one who doesn’t also repents. Image Credits: Faizan Patel

Firstly wedding is a happy occasion for you (exceptions exist but let’s not get there) but it certainly is not happy for your pocket. It only ceases to matter if you are a rich guy/girl whose parents have earmarked tens of lakhs to spend on your special day. For others it can burn a hole in your pocket. There are always sarees to be gifted to people, clothes to be bought for near and dear, that payment to the flower wala, or the tent wala or the car wala. The above holds true if you have a spine and are not a parasite on parents for your own wedding. Statutory warning: if you thought wedding was it; you are mistaken. ‘Real’ expenditure starts after the wedding gets over.

Secondly weddings are highly emotional affairs. Everyone is pretty much charged up. The occasionally sobbing mother or aunt or grandmother. The financially stressed out father. The demanding-for-great-treatment relatives. The superior-feeling ‘boys-side’. The let-nothing-go-wrong ‘girls-side’. And in this everyone staying-on-the-edge for the wedding state of affairs, feathers do get ruffled. There will be a few disgruntled people. Remember that even though you set on the course of keeping everyone happy in your wedding you seldom do so. Reconcile to that fact, do not pay get too emotional over them, and you will be fine.

Thirdly, weddings if men thought, would fetch them nice gifts could be (not in every case) in for disappointed. Usually these affairs are lopsided towards the fairer sex. Your wife might receive 20 new sarees in the end and you only 2 new shirts. Same applies to gold jewellery (not applicable in certain communities). Same applies to ‘cash’ envelopes. By the end of the wedding if you pile up things you can sense the distinct disparity.

Fourthly weddings involve a lot of shopping. This point should have featured at the beginning but then since it is a continuous process, it could come anywhere. There is no fixed point when this process called shopping begins; it could be half a year ahead or could be a fortnight or a month earlier. But the time frame has nothing to do with the volume of shopping. The end point of shopping is the day prior to the wedding day in many cases. Thought at many (most) instances you will question the logic of articles that are bought, but it is in your best interest to not question and just do it as has been told to you. The shopping post-wedding has to be dealt separately.

Fifthly, weddings are largely beyond your control. Neither you decide the ways in which it happens nor do you have a say (to a large extent) in the events and their magnitude. Parents have the blueprint of your wedding in their head and they don’t entertain changes. You may force your way in some things, but risk it at the chagrin you have to face. Sometimes it is advisable and good and prudent to leave it to their better wisdom. However parents are becoming accommodating and are entertaining changes but some odd relative or a neighbour sometimes is enough to create that disharmony by his/her suggestions about your wedding.

Sixthly and lastly (more points depending on the response) weddings are meant to be happy occasions and it should be kept at that. The new bride has to adjust amidst new people and everyone should acknowledge that. The two people who are new to each other (barring long courtship ending in marriage) must understand each other. Striking a balance between expectations, of various quarters, can be challenging at times. But rarely would there be anything more lovely than the bond that you share with your partner. If you really come to think of it, matches are indeed made in heaven (sometimes broken on earth). Live it. Well, you know, you actually have to.

PS: Wedding as they have always told are like Delhi ka laddoo; one who eats repents and one who doesn’t also repents. They could not have gotten it more right.

1 Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.