The dye on my hands has long since faded, and my popping red fake nails have grown out to an awkward length, but the giddy buzz still remains. Even through the fog of being on Day 3 of a gastrointestinal issue that is draining me of everything, even through the frustration of having just realized that the clinic I went to charged me a huge amount of money but did not test for any parasites, even through the malaise of feeling very, very behind on a lot of work – the giddy buzz still remains.
As of today, it has been forty days and forty nights since I got to marry my best friend! It was a day full of love, fun, and surprises. A day not in the least how I imagined it, but I loved every single moment.
Let me back up and share a bit. My partner and I got engaged in late August on a hillside in the south of the Kathmandu valley. After a few years of a long-distance relationship and long flights to see each other, we decided it was time to take the next step – with COVID and visa restrictions, that long-distance lifestyle just wasn’t sustainable. My parents were already going to be visiting Nepal in October, so we thought, why not plan everything really quickly and get married while they’re here? Better to have them around!
So we dove into wedding prep. That started with lots of calls back and forth to my partner’s family who did all the on-the-ground preparations out in Dhangadi, a far-western part of Nepal where they are from and where we got married. Here in the city, we balanced our time between getting a court marriage, going from shop to shop to manage wedding clothing and gifts, and staying (somewhat) on top of our jobs. The court marriage was surprisingly difficult and expensive, given how easy I understood it to be to have a court marriage in the US. Nepalese law requires quite a few documents to prove who you are, where you are from, and that you are not already married – all of these documents have a price tag attached, and that price tag is not cheap for most Nepalis and is significantly inflated for all foreigners. We spent several weeks running around town to collect, translate, and notarize the various documents.
When everything was finally ready and we had gathered our witnesses (and all of their required documents), we got dolled up and met at the Kathmandu District Court on a hot Monday morning in September. We moved from office to office, submitting various papers and picking up new ones, and sat on benches for long stretches in between. In the afternoon, we went before a judge in a tiny crowded room, crawling over piles of attorneys and witnesses and other spousal hopefuls, to have our relationship verified very quickly before signing a booklet that said we could get married. At that point, our attorney informed us that our witnesses’ work was done but that the two of us would have to wait around a few hours for some mysterious reason until our final paperwork was ready. So we all headed to a nearby café to have snacks and coffees, passing long lines of Nepalis handcuffed together, in custody, on their way to a mass hearing.
Once we said goodbye to our friends, we headed back to the district court, passing more lines of handcuffed Nepalis, several of which were trailed by weeping women. We waited on a bench in the atrium, watching the gaggles of attorneys run circles around the place, peering at other couples and wondering about their stories, trying to memorize lines for my performance in The Incubator Series. Finally our attorney handed us a rough copy of our marriage certificate and asked us to look for any mistakes before printing the real copy. We found a typo in my home address; they fixed it and printed it on nice Nepali paper with hearts lining the margins, and we brought it before the official man who would grant us our legal marriage. He looked it over, asked us to verify ourselves, and gave it the stamp of approval. It was then our turn to finalize it by signing it, but as an extra precaution our attorney asked us to look it over one last time… at which point we realized my partner’s mother’s name was spelled incorrectly. We returned to the printing folks, they made us a new copy, and we brought it before the official man who would grant us our legal marriage – but this time for real. He looked it over, asked us to verify ourselves, asked us with a raised eyebrow why we were coming back a second time, and gave it the stamp of approval. It was then our turn to finalize it by signing it, this time for real – but as an extra precaution, we decided to look it over one last time… at which point we realized my partner’s mother’s name was spelled correctly, but the typo in my address had returned. With dread in our stomachs, we followed our attorney back to the printing folks, who made us a new copy while lamenting about how ashamed they were to be going in front of “Sir” a third time with the same spousal hopefuls. My partner and I tried to laugh it off while scouring the third and hopefully final printout very carefully for any possible typos; finding none, we brought it before the official man who would grant us our legal marriage – but for real for real this time. He looked it over, looked at us with two raised eyebrows, asked why we had come before him a third time in fifteen minutes, and said something to our attorney that I did not catch. For a moment I thought he would call security and throw us out for fraud…but he gave it the stamp of approval. We scoured it again, just in case, signed it, and thanked our attorney profusely for his help. We had our attorney snap a picture of us and our license in the atrium of the district court, at which point security did come and try to throw us out – no photos allowed, apparently!
And with that, it was over. We hopped in a taxi, sat in standstill traffic, and eventually I made it to my rehearsal – only six hours late. We celebrated that evening with a nice sushi dinner at a fancy hotel near our apartment, and the next day we both went back to work as if nothing had happened.
But there was still so much left to do, still another wedding to be had! We took seemingly endless trips to various tailors and jewelry shops around town, gathering outfits and accessories for ourselves and a few guests who would be joining us from the US. We ate out every day and forgot the meaning of cooking at home; that didn’t matter anyway, since our fridge had never really worked again after the repairs in July. With each passing day, the wedding that we’d meant to be a small, simple affair grew larger and larger, and with each trip to the marketplace, we pushed through larger and larger crowds as the festival season approached.
Conveniently, we had chosen to get married on the tenth day of Dashain, the most important Hindu festival in Nepal. This fifteen-day festival celebrates the triumph of good over evil, and in a practical sense it is the most important time of the year to be with family. Huge amounts of people leave the Kathmandu valley and head back to their hometowns to be with family, to eat food and offer tika to one another – but first, everyone must do their holiday shopping around Ason, which also happened to be where we did all of our wedding shopping. It was, obviously, hectic.
Our guests arrived on early-morning flights a few days before our wedding. We whisked them into the heart and heat of Ason market to gather the last few things for the wedding (like purses to match the sarees, and full darwa suruwal fittings for the men) and to keep them awake after the long trip. (I suspect if you ask my mother, she will have some stories to share about the craziness of the crowd we dragged them through!) It is easy to come to Nepal and never experience Ason at its wildest, but why wouldn’t you? Travel is all about experiences.
By Monday, October 3, all of our guests had arrived, all of our purchases had been made, and we all headed back to the airport to fly out to Dhangadi, sweaty and tired and ready for a break from the madness of Kathmandu. I sweated and slept my way through the hour-and-a-half-long flight, waking on occasion to snap a mediocre picture of the spectacular mountain views out our window. When we landed, I was surprised to find my new brother-in-law and his wife and their toddler son waiting to greet us at the hot Dhangadi baggage claim. It was an overwhelming moment of excitement and happiness.
The next day, the day before the wedding, my partner’s immediate family gathered at a fancy coffee shop to meet me, my parents, and our few guests from out of town. I had only met a few of his family members before, so it felt important to have everyone sit down together before the big day, even though it was a hectic time. We struggled through language barriers, cultural differences, and jetlag, but eventually left the coffee date feeling happy and grateful and ready for what was to come.
Later that day, we ladies had a small mehendi party at the hotel while the guys stayed back at the bar to try out whiskeys and do whatever men do while women spend hours getting beautiful. Bridal mehendi, or henna as we would call it in the States, takes hours draw on and more hours to dry and set in. Tradition says that the darker your henna turns out on the day of your wedding, the more you love your husband; in reality, the darker your henna turns out, the longer you were willing to leave it on your arms before rubbing it off – it’s just a mark of patience. I had a lot of fun watching the young ladies from the salon paint intricate, beautiful patterns from my elbows to my fingertips and then down the tops of my feet too. Behind me, I could hear my future sisters-in-law applying designs to my mom’s hand, and then to her friend Jo’s hand, and then to my friend Dara’s hand. Everyone’s turned out so beautifully!
Aside from being so beautiful, mehendi also has cooling and calming properties for the skin, very useful historically for young, nervous, arranged-marriage brides. Before applying the mehendi, typically the bride also receives a haldi rub too, which is a turmeric paste spread over your skin to make it glow. Between the turmeric and the mehendi, I was a goopy, relaxed mush of cooling and glowing.
Once the mehendi had been set, we went out into the sweltering heat for a photo shoot. The men returned from the bar and provided plenty of heckling and commentary as the photographer had the time of his life posing me and telling me how excited he was to post my photos on his Facebook page. It’s not every day you get a foreign client as a photographer in Dhangadi! He slid between Nepali (which I do understand) and Hindi (which I do not) to tell me how to pose; when I still didn’t understand, he would hand me the camera and assume the pose himself so I could model properly. We tried to encourage him to be more spontaneous and go with the flow in his shooting techniques, but he preferred to go with the pose.
That night, we stood on the rooftop of Dhangadi’s Hotel Rubus and looked at the jungle across the Indian border as the sky turned purple and swathes of giant fruit bats flew close overhead like some old Halloween flick. In the morning, I headed to the only salon in town that was still open on this very important religious holiday, accompanied by my mom, Jo, Dara, and a soon-to-be sister-in-law. I figured I might not have a lot of say over how my hair and makeup turned out that day, and when the parlor Auntie started crimping my hair in tiny little ‘90s-era ripples, I knew I was right. It was going to be a day of yes-and. I settled in to the sticky leather chair and waited to see how I would turn out. I made the mistake of sitting up halfway through and heard someone exclaim from behind, “You look like Cleopatra!” It was true. I don’t know how it was possible, but it was true. The thickly coated eyebrows, the heavy false lashes that didn’t sit properly, the orange eyeshadow without eyeliner to balance it – somehow I looked just like Cleopatra. I laid back down, horrified, trying to trust that it would come together in the end.
Come together it did, in the end, and I was just a ball of excitement ready for more yes-and. We ladies returned to the Rubus, dolled up in our sarees and ready to go, only to find the men lounging in their PJs and reminiscing about their trip to the Indian border that morning. We had a quick lunch and then headed to the Shiva Dham temple in shifts, to await the small parade that delivered my partner from his home to the temple. As soon as I heard the band, I was overwhelmed with excitement and joy and anticipation. With more and more people arriving, I kept being swept around for photo ops – everyone wanted their own picture with the new bride, though most of these people I had never met. I kept looking around for my partner and worrying about the impending rain, trying to smile another smile and pose another pose but feeling quite distracted.
Finally, he stepped out of the jeep decorated with brightly colored plastic flowers, looking handsome and glowing as ever.
From there on, the whole ceremony was a blur of surprises and happiness and action action action. That, perhaps, is the main difference between a Catholic and a Hindu wedding ceremony – in Hindu weddings, there is so much the bride and groom have to do! I spent the whole hour-and-a-half ceremony trying to understand the many people shouting Nepali instructions at me while also trying to keep my saree from falling apart or getting caught on something. Because I do not remember the details so clearly (and I don’t really know the specific significance of most of what happened), I’ll just share some photo highlights instead of writing it out. Enjoy!
Pouring blessed water around Suraj and the table holding various items for the marriage ritual.
Offering our first tika (blessing) to each other as about-to-be newlyweds.
We were told to shake hands after exchanging rings.
My parents ritually washing my hands to pass them to my partner.
Tied together and seated before the ritual fire.
My parents being introduced to new people and new customs and lookin' cute while doing it!
Placing the ritual sindhur powder, the main signifier of a married woman.
Making seven rounds around the fire while tied together. I only hit my head on the strut two times!
Feeding one another for the first time as newlyweds.
Suraj had to lift me and put me down to the left to signify the end of the ritual.
Not sure why, but Suraj's brother had to lift both of us. Obviously I was surprised!
Walking around the Shiva Dham lingam after the ceremony, for more photos of course.
There's an entire ritual around entering the groom's home for the first time - which involves walking on lit candles while carrying ten pounds of rice on your head!
A happy ending and a new beginning!
