Upcoming Wedding
Every year many Indian couples get married so statistically it is not a big deal that now we have a wedding coming up in our family but wow it sure feels different! I had not anticipated a whole new feeling - a new phase in parenting, as I call it - from the moment I found out that Amoli got engaged. It is a mixed feeling of pure joy to have a new family member and a deep scare of losing my beloved daughter to someone.
As anyone who has gone through the process knows, wedding preparations can be overwhelming - to say the least. For centuries it has been so but the difference now is that a huge industry has been created around the needs of brides and grooms and their families. As I found out, India is probably a step ahead in this market. As I plan the upcoming wedding of my daughter, it feels like this huge industry is sucking me in and there is no way out unless I decide to dodge the system altogether.
It started when out of curiosity we - my daughter and I - went to attend an Indian Bridal show. As soon as we walked in, the glitter and glamour overwhelmed us. The feeling was so powerful that, instead of getting motivated, and excited, we felt like we wanted to run away from it all. Samples of spicy food, racks of glittery costumes, flashy pictures of fabricated love, and heady tunes of DJ's blaring music - which should not even be called music - everything in those two rooms at Ritz Carlton Hotel felt like it was attacking every cell in my body. Where are the beauty and elegance? Where is the sweetness of two people joining their lives? There were several businesses with names like "elegant wear" and "beauty something" in those rooms but to me, it felt like the meaning of those words was missing.
Every year many Indian couples get married so statistically it is not a big deal that now we have a wedding coming up in our family but wow it sure feels different! I had not anticipated a whole new feeling - a new phase in parenting, as I call it - from the moment I found out that Amoli got engaged. It is a mixed feeling of pure joy to have a new family member and a deep scare of losing my beloved daughter to someone.
As anyone who has gone through the process knows, wedding preparations can be overwhelming - to say the least. For centuries it has been so but the difference now is that a huge industry has been created around the needs of brides and grooms and their families. As I found out, India is probably a step ahead in this market. As I plan the upcoming wedding of my daughter, it feels like this huge industry is sucking me in and there is no way out unless I decide to dodge the system altogether.
It started when out of curiosity we - my daughter and I - went to attend an Indian Bridal show. As soon as we walked in, the glitter and glamour overwhelmed us. The feeling was so powerful that, instead of getting motivated, and excited, we felt like we wanted to run away from it all. Samples of spicy food, racks of glittery costumes, flashy pictures of fabricated love, and heady tunes of DJ's blaring music - which should not even be called music - everything in those two rooms at Ritz Carlton Hotel felt like it was attacking every cell in my body. Where are the beauty and elegance? Where is the sweetness of two people joining their lives? There were several businesses with names like "elegant wear" and "beauty something" in those rooms but to me, it felt like the meaning of those words was missing.
So that was the introduction to organizing a wedding. Actually no I take it back. Prior to that, during our trip to India, we had visited some stores that sell outfits for bride and groom - and for everyone else in the family. We almost ran out of the first "upscale designer" store that we visited just by looking at the price. A few years ago you could have bought a small house for that price! Apparently, the new trend is to buy designer dresses - which flaunt a lot of embroideries done by some workers. The "designer" selects the colors and the glitter that goes on to the fabric from which the dresses are made. I remembered that in my young days, mothers and aunts of the previous generation used to do these "designs' themselves that now we have to assign to these modern designers at some insane prices.
A side note: For that matter, everything that the previous generation of women did as a hobby or for the family had now turned into a money-making business. From cooking to raising babies is now farmed out to small businesses at almost prohibitive costs.
So the "dress shopping" had opened our eyes to the wedding industry in India while the bridal show dazed us as to what is happening in the US.
Is there a way out of all of these and still possible to create a decent, elegant (oops, a wrong word!) and classy wedding? I hope so! I am searching. We still have time. The wedding is next year.
