Weddingbee

As Miss Jasmine has shown us, Indian culture is incredibly rich, colorful, and vibrant. Last summer, one of my best friends married his beautiful wife with a 4-day long celebration full of Indian traditions and lively dancing. I’ll share some details of the Gujurati garba-raas event, which took place the night before their ceremony and reception. It was amazing to watch and even more exhilarating to be a part of!

The bride and groom started off doing a simple 4-step garba with their immediate families.

More and more friends and family started to join in…

Soon, hundreds (seriously, hundreds) of people were dancing the garba and the entire room was a whirlwind of swishing colors, bouncing steps, and joyful energy. Mr. Ant and I joined in for a while too!

Here’s a video of the 4-step garba. Later on, some groups moved onto more complicated 6, 8, and even 12-step garbas!

Eventually, the dancing switched to a raas, another Gujurati dance with sticks.

I’ve always loved how Indian dancing is fun for all ages, no matter how young or old.

I had soooo much fun learning and dancing the raas! Check out my cool new moves. What do you think? Bollywood material?

Haha. As you can see from my expression, I got pretty excited when the groom joined our raas line.

Here’s a video of the entire room dancing the raas. Some raas lines are doing really advanced moves!

The groom was one of my oldest and dearest childhood friends. And now he’s blissfully married to a lovely woman who actually gets his quirky sense of humor. Don’t you love it when great things happen to people you care about? I couldn’t imagine a better matched couple!

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On a tangential note, the beaded, orange salwar-kameez I wore is actually a gift from the groom many years ago. He picked it out for me while visiting India. Isn’t it stunning?! I felt like I was wearing a work of art.

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