Walking Down the Aisle...In a Sari

Boubhath or Walima

The wedding is typically hosted by the bride’s family and the reception or ‘boubhath’ is thrown by the groom’s family a few days or weeks after the wedding, to welcome the new bride into the family. The boubhath is basically a relaxed version of the wedding day where the bride and groom can mingle with their guests, dance and have fun. The wedding day is typically more rigid as the newlyweds have many customs to follow, so the guests usually end up having more fun than the couple!

Dulal and I both have very large families who are intent on carrying out each and every tradition by the book. However, given our current economic conditions, and in the interest of respecting everyone’s time, we are going to add a modern element to our traditional wedding by combining our Gayer Holuds. Our wedding will take place in New York (where I’m from) and the reception (boubhath) in Atlanta between three and four weeks later.

One thing’s for sure—we’re going to need a lot of sleep after all these celebrations. But my sleepless nights might be starting a lot sooner than I had anticipated.

Stay tuned to find out what the hardest part about my entire wedding process has been and how I got through it.