A Grandiose Wedding

..........I just got back from a friend’s pre-wedding ceremony in Chittagong. Try as I may, I could not get the glorious feeling of being in a different planet for two days out of my head. This was perhaps, the best wedding I have attended in a long time ever since my sister's wedding two years ago. My friend Meera's wedding in Sri Lanka five years ago was also very memorable. Set in a fairy tale theme with live ocean as a backdrop for the festivities, lots of candles, lighted pots in the form of lamps, everyone dancing salsa to spanish songs and the following day; friends of the esteemed bride and groom were carted away to Blue Waters, a beautiful resort outside Colombo.

Even though, I personally prefer small wedding, I cannot deny that the greatest thing about this wedding was the grandeur, the lights, the beautiful people and the wonderful music. Music is therapeutic. I listened to it, all the way in the car as we traveled to our destination, which took about six hours, and than at the dance rehearsals that took place all day and night for two entire days, at the pre-wedding ceremony and finally all the way back home. I felt like being an observer on the sets of a famous Bollywood movie featuring a wedding complete with lights, film and action!

Wedding ceremonies are a profound way to seal a marriage. As I watched the groom sitting quietly in traditional form of submission while hundreds of people splattered the traditional turmeric on his entire face and fed him hundreds of spoonfuls of homemade sweets I realized that custom is one thing that binds a person to their promises. Either it’s the church marriage, or the registry marriage or the traditional Bengali wedding, it’s a subtle sign of getting a person mentally prepared for the vows they take.

However, there are exceptions. Quiet weddings with a few close friends and handful relatives are quite popular too and a personal favorite of mine. No matter how a couple decides to bind themselves to each other in holy matrimony, either it’s a famous wedding in an aeroplane, a yatch, or a great venue selection where the groom alights at the wedding scene in a helicopter, or where the bride-to-be performs rituals to remove a curse in the natal charts before her actual marriage; it’s a step forward, a dedication made and a new change to life’s journey. People getting married, likes to mark this special day with an unique way of celebrating it.

Undoubtly, the best wedding stories I have heard about real live people I know would be one where girl meets boy, secretly likes each other without voicing their feelings, meets again after 16years under completely different circumstances and than gets married within a week, realizing that the feelings shared by them in the past was mutual. That would be the wedding story of my ex-colleague Anita and her hubby. The latest one, heard at this recent wedding would be of Shaker and his wife where, girl meets boy in kindergarten, parents move into the same neighborhood, boy tells girl he loves her in Grade 3, they grow up together, study together, start dating and than finally get married. Or the story of two of my friends, Faria and Mahmud who got married over the phone after continuing a long distance relationship for several years. So, its true that long distance relationships do exist, its true that if you ever liked someone there is a good chance that you will end up with that person if destiny has planned it for you and its also true that childhood friends make the best life partners.

So, you will know yours is a rare match made in heaven when you have your own story of tying the knot being written in your friend’s blog or have your friends relate the story of your wedding to their grandchildren and their friends for many years to come.

But how do you know when the time is right? Is it peer pressure? Should you listen to your biological clock? Should you listen to your parents whining in your ears day in and day out because they are in a hurry to see you settled? Out of all the options for getting married, including love and security, the best one I heard from a happily married couple this weekend was “ when you feel you have so much in you that you want to share your time, space and your life with someone; you will know its time to tie the knot”!

Check out some myths of marriage from: http://marriage.about.com/cs/myths/a/marmyths.htm

MYTH: Loneliness Myth that marriage will end our loneliness. REALITY: Many married people are still very lonely.

MYTH: Fulfillment Fallacy which makes us believe that being married makes us complete human beings. REALITY: A couple complements one another, not completes one another.

MYTH: Marriage makes people happy. REALITY: We can't expect our spouse to be our one source of happiness. Our personal happiness must come from within ourselves. Marriage can complement our own individual happiness but it can't be the primary source.