A Sangeet

Debby's wedding was a blending of Indian and American customs.  Traditional Indian weddings usually consist of 5 days of celebrations.  In Debby and Sam's case, they combined some of the events and had 3 days of celebrations rather than all 5.  Fortunately, we were there and able to go the Sangeet.  All I can say is that Indians know how to party.  They truly "celebrate" weddings.  What a great cultural experience for us. 

Two days before the wedding, some very close family friends of the Kumars (groom's family) hosted a Sangeet for Debby and Sam.  It is basically a big party with food, music, dancing, and Mehndi.  Mehndi is the application of a henna tattoo.  The bride gets a very intricate design on her arms, hands, legs and feet.  It really is an art and amazing to watch it applied. 

Debby, after she started Mehndi.  Little does she know, she
will be spending the rest of the night getting her tattoo finished.

Debby trapped in the Mehndi Gazebo as Sam comes by for a visit.

All the other ladies also get a design on their hand.  Of course, the girls and I weren't passing this up.  None of us had ever had a henna tattoo before, so we were excited to get it done.  Tattoo's can last up to two weeks, but ours only made it about a week.  The design is supposed to represent your name, so each of us had something different.  What a fun and unique experience.

A main element of a Sangeet is music and so we had our very own live Indian band.  Seriously, these guys were a hoot.  The band was dancing, singing and pumping everyone up.  It was dark when I took these pictures, but look at the glow-in-the-dark pants on the band's lead--awesome!

Paige and my dad dancing

I should also mention that when it comes to dancing at Indian weddings, everyone does it!  I mean EVERYONE and they really do shake it.  Nothing formal here, just loud music, jumping and moving to the beat.  The highlight of the evening might have been my dad and Sameer's dad dancing--you don't see that every day!

We also had some delicious vegetarian, Indian food.  Funny thing is that when we first arrived there were tables of appetizers out and an open bar.  So we just figured it was finger food, drinks and dancing, which was plenty because there was tons of food.  Imagine our surprise when after about 90 minutes of dancing, etc. dinner was served.  We weren't ready for that but it was delicious.  Kind of reminded me of Thai culture---can't have a party without way too much food.