Friday, July 2, 2010

Nepali Wedding
















From Top to Bottom:
(1) Old and New
(2) Pashupatinath Temple – wedding site
(3) Groom waiting on the couch for his bride. They met for the first time a week ago. Almost all wedding in Nepal are arranged marriages. Only a very few, modern couples opt for “love” marriages, instead. The younger people I talk to say that they are glad their parents arrange their marriages for them, as they are older and wiser and know much more about who is well suited for each other than they do.
(4) Hindu priests preparing for one of the marriage rites
(5) New couple
(6) Family members come and wash the feet of the bride and groom, sometimes also drinking the water (depending on their family status).
(7) Family members giving “thikkas” to the bride and groom.
(8) Bride standing before her dowry. After the wedding, she officially belongs to her husband’s family.
(9) My neighbors. Aren’t they adorable?
(10) The night before the wedding the bridal party stay at home all day preparing elaborate Mendhi designs on each other’s hands, eating, and dancing.
(11) Girls from the bride’s side of the family steal a shoe from the groom while he is on the couch, and then demand compensation for returning the shoe – a tradition at weddings, apparently. Perhaps prompted in resistance to the money the bride’s family gives a groom’s family for the marriage…

3 comments:

Unknown said...
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Martin J. said...

Hi Tiffany,

My name is Martin and I am writing to you on behalf of a website that I am currently involved in starting up. We aim to provide prospect volunteers with all the information they need in order to feel confident in their choice of organisation, position and destination, as well as inspire people to make the jump and try out volunteering.

As a part of that, I was wondering whether you might be interested in answering a few questions and perhaps sharing any advice you may have for people who are considering to volunteer.

If you think you might have time to do this, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me through info@volunteeringinfo.org, and you can view the website I'm representing at www.volunteeringinfo.org.

Thanks, and keep up your amazing work!

Martin Jonsson

brian said...

This is wonderful, Tiff. Thanks for sharing.