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My parents justification for a large guest list is simple - we had attended one of their weddings so it is naturally expected of us to invite them to ours. You cannot argue with that straight reciprocal thinking except there are half a dozen extra members in their family since that last wedding we attended. And of course, we are not expected to leave them out, are we? Even if I have met them only once in my life and that too, as a mere nodding acquaintance. Given that I have spent a considerable amount of time on this side of the Atlantic, there will be plenty of people at my wedding reception that I have never met and would actually be just passing acquaintance of my parents. But then it really isn’t just my wedding, is it? It is actually a ceremony of the entire family or even the clan, if you so wish.
I have simply given up trying to keep the guest list small. I have been asked to provide the list of my friends whom I like to invite and now I am debating whether I should add the names of any college mates who was remotely acquainted with or just call those whom I was really friendly with and risk endless rounds of teeth gnashing from those that were left out. Heck, I might just invite them all and hope only the ones that care turn up but you never know how much pull a free wedding invite has. Although I am not sure if inviting an ex-girlfriend would be kosher and I certainly don’t want any Bollywood-esque moments; already had plenty of those in my life.
However, there is a silver lining to all of this. Nope, I am not thinking about gifts. Well, frankly I don’t know if it is a silver lining since I won’t be around to notice it. Indian weddings are a perfect occasion (or tool) to expand your social network. It is the original social networking tool that worked much before Facebook or MySpace came around. You are deemed a ‘friend’ just because you were invited to my wedding reception. Feel left out? Just get one of your kids married off and invite the whole frikking town and bam! you are back in the loop. Wedding invites in India are more of a social obligation than that in the West. Not being invited to one can have far more serious repercussions than actually being invited for one. It is like your typical thankless job. My parents certainly do not have the problem of being left out of the loop and the only problem might be that they are involved in far too many loops than they can handle. The wedding will be probably the only occasion where all these loops intersect and I’ll be smack in the middle of it, squirming uncomfortable giving an impression like I care. I’ll be expected of course to show that I care otherwise accusations of being a spoilsport or damaged by the West will fly thick and fast.
One thing I know for sure is that I will not be able to draw up this neat relational diagram of the guests at my wedding. But then we never need a tool to spark off conversations in Indian weddings, right? There is always someone in common we know. A billion plus people yet we are separated by less than six degrees. If we don’t, we can always gossip about the ones we know or better still, plan out the weddings for the ‘next in line’ even though they are clearly years away.
by Patrix | on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 1:05 pm | 
India, Personal, Society Culture . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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May 29th, 2007 at 1:36 pm reply
Now that is one big fat desi wedding, he he he :)
You seem to have left out all those eunuchs who show up
uninvited.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:40 pm reply
My advance heart-felt sympathies!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:10 pm reply
bloghopper, it is gonna be fatter than I had earlier imagined and yeah, considering eunuchs had come to our home shortly after I was born it would be unfair to leave them out of my wedding :) haai-re mera Salman khan, kaisa hai re tu..
curiouscat, thanks..gonna need them all but I guess I am just gonna lie back and take it like a man.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:12 pm reply
I believe you will be taking a month off in December? or Jan?
You will be back to College soon right?
(Psst. I guess you don’t check orkut that often. I’d pinged you about meeting up. Guess this is a better place to ping you) :)
May 29th, 2007 at 3:23 pm reply
Piker, dunno about a month but we’ll be trying to maximize the break we get but the schedule already looks too packed for our own good :)
Yeah, you are right about Orkut..don’t check it often. Email usually works better else you have my cell no. :) BTW just emailed you.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:46 pm reply
Biggest difference between Indian weddings and American weddings - in Indian weddings its all about the families and not the couple getting married, in American weddings its all about the couple, in most cases the bride - families and friends be damned. Hard to decide which one is better or worse, perhaps we should not even be comparing.
I may be over-generalizing here but having been to a bunch of weddings in both cultures that is just my simplistic conclusion.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:48 pm reply
Santosh, you are spot on about the difference between American and Indian weddings and I like both kinds equally well. Perhaps in our Indian context, it is more about the gettogethers and joint celebration than just about the couple. Until recently, the couple would hardly know each other let alone plan their own wedding.
BTW did you have your wedding both ways? Sorry, I peeked at your Flickr pics :)
May 29th, 2007 at 6:39 pm reply
We did a hybrid one :-)
We did not want to make people sit through two of them.
No probs about the Flickr pics. They are for folks to see otherwise I would’ve made them private.
May 30th, 2007 at 6:31 am reply
well since the whole town is coming i guess you should put up an online invite for your blogworld pals eh?>??
May 30th, 2007 at 10:43 am reply
Santosh, definitely wise of you. But I would have loved to see the hybrid version…care to share? Would make a great post.
M, definitely! Once the invites are printed up and all details are finalized, I’ll put up an online version.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:46 pm reply
Patrix,
I’ll email you the link to view the photos. Lets concentrate on your wedding in this thread :-)
May 30th, 2007 at 2:23 pm reply
Santosh, I meant sharing the details on your blog :) Perfect link-bait for Sepia Mutiny not that you have a problem getting on their site.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:26 pm reply
Hi Jim. Photos i received. Thanks