Saturday's festivities

Another wonderful tradition involves family of the bride, especially, with respect to the preparation of the bride for her wedding. In light of this, Pallavi's aunts and cousins (and some of the adoptive cousins and aunts, including Heather) gathered at her home and began several very elaborate and colorful ceremonies of preparation.
First, the eldest aunt takes two small bunches of freshly cut grass, which are tied with red threads, and she dips them into water. Afterward, the aunt, holding these bundles, touches various parts of Pallavi's body - head, shoulders, hands, feet, etc., all the while reciting various prayers. The next aunt follows this until either five or seven of the aunts follow the same ritual. After this, the aunts then scoop some turmeric from a bowl, and place it on the bride's body - on her forehead, her cheeks, her arms, her feet - this yellow paste is supposed to enhance the body and make the bride even more beautiful for the groom to receive at the evening's ceremonies. Once all of the seven aunts had finished this ritual, then another ritual began.
As a gift from the groom's family friends - girls the age of the bride, a box of multi-layered brass dangling earring-type pieces of jewelry had been presented to the bride earlier in the morning, and the tradition is that the girls in the family about the same age as the bride then tie one earring each on a silver bangle, one on each arm of the bride. If I could describe these earrings properly, I would say they appear to be tiny brass chandeliers. Heather joined in this ritual and once finished, the bride had about fifteen of these chandeliers hanging from each of the bracelets on her wrists.
Following this, all of the unmarried girls then kneel on the floor before the bride, who then clashes the bracelets together, banging the brass chandeliers together over the head of each of the single girls, as a sign of good luck and blessing that one of them should find a husband of their liking soon. Later on, following the marriage, the bride removed the bracelets from her arms, and with her back to all of the unmarried girls, tosses them over her head and whichever girl catches the bracelet with the chandeliers, is the next to be married - much like the bridal bouquet being tossed by the bride, before she leaves the reception.
Following yet another luncheon at the bride's home, we then returned to our guest house to dress for the evening. Heather wore a magnificent Saree, which had been made especially for her for this wedding, and she looked fantastic (see photos, when we figure out how to load them into the BLOG) and J.T. wore a kurta (long silk shirt) and pajama bottoms, and a wonderful stole around his neck. I wore a dark green kurta and pajama bottoms and a burgundy silk stole. All in all, we feel we represented "our side" of the family very well.
When I have more time, I will describe the evening's festivities, but suffice it to say, it was amazingly cold and the events all took place outside! We were told the temperature that evening at 5:00, was only 3 degrees Celsius. Look up the conversion, but I think it translates into about 38 degrees Fahrenheit! Pretty chilly for silks and sandals, don't you think?