india
We were lucky enough to be invited to our friends wedding in Goa, India. These were friendships forged during covid times in HK, when no one had any excuse to say no to a social occasion and everyone was stuck in the country and always available, friendships that had as much contact time in a year as I’d see my NZ friends in 10 years. Quite a few folks from this friendship group had left HK in the past year so we were all really excited to be reuniting for this wedding. We rented a villa for the few days leading up to the wedding and spent plenty of time catching up over drinks by the pool, as well as seeing a few bits and pieces around Goa. Honestly though this was more about the occasion than the location. We did a cooking course and checked out some old buildings and ate some amazing food, all the while practising our choregraphed dances ready for the main event at the end of the week.
The wedding was held at a hotel, meaning all the guests stayed on site for the whole time, an amazing way to do a multi day wedding, no one had to think about transport or food, just about having a good time. We also got plenty of time with the bride and groom as they could see us easily between the more formal events, they’d generally find us somewhere by the pool!
The wedding was 2 days, 4 events, morning and evening each day with a casual buffet lunch served in between. It started with a fun event where we all blessed the bride and groom by covering them in tumeric paste then their families threw buckets of water and flower petals all over them, a bright fun event where all the indian side of the family wore bright yellow outfits. That evening was the big dance event, almost everyone in attendance had been given a group dance to learn and had been practising in earnest, not being a natural dancer I was well out of my comfort zone but what an honor and an opportunity to be involved in something like this. Our group (HK ladies) had 2 dances to learn, one with and one without the bride, we had worked hard on it and were stoked when we nailed it on the night! The nice thing about everyone having a dance to learn was that once that part was over the vibe on the dancefloor was unreal, everyone was super into it, trying each others moves and generally happy with relief that the hard part was over. For this event we were asked to wear traditional indian dress so the colours and patterns moving and groving made it all the more special.
The next morning was the formal wedding part which we all also wore traditional Indian dress to, we were given pamphlets to help us follow the myriad small rituals unfolding in front of us. It was wonderfully chaotic, sweet, funny and joyful and seeing the bride and groom in their indian wedding outfits was someting quite special. The final event was the western wedding reception with the westerners back to wearing western outfits, speeches and games and non choreographed dancing including classics like the limbo and plenty of repeat attempts of the previous nights’ dances. Once the noise curfew kicked in the party moved to a room inside the hotel where a DJ played on and we were all constantly being offered shots of god-knows-what from a teapot.
It was the most lively and colourful wedding I’ve ever been to and the most immersive. We had so much fun and really didn’t want to leave, which turned out to be a case of “be careful what you wish for” as Air India moved our return flight 4 days later without telling us! After far too long talking to customer service whilst hungover we decided to just buy new flights (we had to get back for work), so it was a slightly painful ending to an otherwise amaaaaazing trip.
Note: as I don’t like to show me or my family/friends faces in pictures on here, I’ve barely got any to share, as all my pics were full of beaming humans!
