An Indian Wedding

So many, last week, were my occasions for wonder, that a post about my hike in Dillon alone will not suffice. I have more to tell of my time in Boulder!

On the 4th of July–that day when most contented themselves in homage to our National Independence, to watch electric flowers explode on the horizon–my partner and I had plans of an altogether different nature. And of these plans, I had known for some weeks. Still, I was not a little disheartened that I should be made to give up fireworks for an Indian Wedding. But that was exactly what I would do, and my faint-hearted resentment soon gave place to anticipation.

My partner being ever a great admirer of Eastern culture, and twice a voyager to the country of India, thought well of placing an Indian Wedding on his shortlist of things to do or see in this lifetime. And why not? Indian weddings are famed for the grandeur of their designs and the felicity of their executions. It is, for example, not uncommon that parents spend their entire life savings upon the ceremonies and parties, which may last as many as three days in succession. All that is best in form and function, has its place at an Indian Wedding. The ornamentation is divinely intricate, yet magnificent of scale. A thing as unassuming as a Wedding Invitation receives the treatment of a fine tome in which the pages are gilt and bound in cloth. Such an invitation may then receive inlays of Swarovski crystals, amidst arabesque images of florals and paisleys.

Such was the case at this wedding, where also, upon entering the ballroom at the Ritz Carlton in Denver, we were greeted with luminescent ice sculptures in the fashion of peacocks, whose translucent plumage glowed cerrulean by the grace of some few well-placed spotlights. The centerpieces at each table were the forms of candelabra, from which crystals shivered in profusion. These latter had come the long way from India herself, the better to realize the themes at hand. Women dashed to and fro in a procession of otherworldly garments in which were to be admired the finest and most decadent details. Again, one saw the painstaking inlays of jewels and embroideries of gold thread. It was no less a vision that what Cindarella must have beheld in the court of her prince. And one could not help but give pause to consider the lovely dresses that might always surround us were it not that lackluster vogues now consume the time of our lives. It takes no less than an Indian Wedding to show what is possible, and what is delicious to the eyes.

The bride and groom literally held court from the head of the stage, where they were arrayed as if images of royalty, upon two golden thrones. They listened intently to a chorus of those whose charge it was to toast their newfound happiness. And then there were dancers! Dancers brought forth, to express in motion what the bride and groom no doubt felt in their hearts, which was unabashed joy. And again, one saw what is luxurious in the adornments of their costumes, in the expressions of their faces.

A hundred little details consumed me, that might have delighted everyone or me alone. Rose petals by the thousands were strewn across the floor. The wedding cake, three tiers high, matched perfectly the hue of the bride’s dress. It was the blush color of romance, ringed with braids of tiny, edible pearls, and topped with a golden crown. Delicate votive candles shined out from multi-colored vessels. Tapestries of surpassingly beatiful patterns in silver, hung each wall.

To say that the proceedings were lavish would short them unfairly. I might go on forever, but suffice it to say, I wished that all weddings could be so awe-inspiring. Indeed, such occasions remind us that ceremony is beautiful, and that people have created their own forms of sublimity and majesty. I like to think that love is both simple and excessive, and the wedding captured both in a seamless and silken pageantry I won’t ever forget.