This Monday

Devin and Susheem #2: Royal Wedding

If you think “royal wedding” is an over the top description, then clearly you weren’t at Devin and Susheem’s Christian wedding. Let’s cut to the chase. Just LOOK at this picture. Doesn’t it look like someone extremely important is getting married? (No offense, Dev). I'm the red blob on the far left.

I was a bridesmaid in this wedding, which gave me a very different perspective. I spent the ceremony thinking about how painful my shoes were, rather than how beautiful the vows were. Although, I am sure they were very nice. Devin had seven bridesmaids, and Susheem had seven groomsmen. 14 attendants! Doesn’t that seem like a lot? It wasn’t. It just fit in with everything.

The wedding was held at Stanford memorial church, the day after the Hindu ceremony. (Stop and think: how lucky is Devin that she got to have two wedding dresses?) I had only seen the outside of the church up to this point, and the inside was AMAZING. The alter had a few levels, and the stained glass windows were amazing. The whole place just looked gold and …. lavish? Can you use that word to describe a church? All of us bridesmaids marched down the aisle, holding bouquets of 34 white roses. Devin walked down the aisle with her father, and had a very long veil, and a very big train. I know. It took 4 bridesmaids to carry her dress, while she was wearing it, so it wouldn’t touch the ground! The dress had a very stylish gold sash around the waste. But back to the ceremony.

First we stood in a row, but then for the exchanging of rings, we moved up to the second level of the alter and formed a circle.

After exchanging rings, Devin was presented with a traditional Sri Lankan wedding necklace by Susheem’s mother. It a very complicated setup, I think Susheem held the necklace, while his sister did the clash in the back, and Devin’s maid of honor help up her hair. Finally, at the end of the ceremony, we all marched back down the aisle, and then spend, I dunno, an hour or two taking pictures in and around the church.

The reception was at a hotel that provided plenty of seating for their almost 300 guest. Our seating arrangements were told to us by note cards placed in picture frames that we could take home from the wedding, along with cute boxes containing a special Sri Lankan wedding cake. After many lovely speeches, toasts, and lighting of traditional candle thingies, we finally got to eat. Sadly, by this point, I was very drunk. I guess all the pressure of being a bridesmaid got to me. However, everyone said I was a fun drunk, so I guess it was okay. We had steak to eat, a lots of wine, did I mention that? When it came time to dance to the live band, all of us were once again out on the dance floor. Nemanja and I really got a chance to kick it, and I had so much fun danving with him. From some pictures, I found out there was a congo line, but I have very little memory of this. And when the bouquet toss came, I was just drunk enough to beat out all the other bridesmaids for it.

Between the 8 million pictures I took, the two professional photographers, the videographers (Dev says it will be a 4 DVD set!), and my very nice bridesmaid dress, it is an event not to be forgotten. I know it was important to Dev and her family to have a big wedding that people could only say great things about. They did a good job.

posted by This Monday Morning @ 6:36 PM