How To Save Costs on Wedding Cuisine

A wedding is not only a union of the couple; traditionally it symbolizes the merging of two families and society. Also, the wedding ceremony should reflect the sacredness of marriage, drawing the attention of parents and friends.

After the dressing of the bride and groom, the only thing comes after that is the wedding cuisine. Food tops the list of the wedding guests. A great wedding is characterized by the food and drinks served there in Hindi Matrimony. People also like to enjoy the wedding cuisine, but I was unlucky at my wedding as I was on fast that day, and couldn’t enjoy the mouth watery and sumptuous food of my wedding.

One needs to prepare a list of the total expenditure and get an idea of how much you want to spend, since the catering is extremely expensive. The caterers charge for per plate of food, but yes, you have the options to cut off the extra costs by arranging the cooks on your own. If your guests list is long, say more than 1000, then it is can be the best option. But it becomes a responsible task while arranging food on your own.

Arranging drinks for the guests is considered as the status symbol. There are many caterers that provide glassware with the drinks or a 'sale or return' option, according to which you can return the unopened bottles and get the refund.

These days’ wedding cakes have emerged as the latest trend even in Hindu matrimonial. Cutting the cake after the wedding is a great fun, and you can also include that fun element to your marriage. The cake cutting moment is cherished by all the guests be it a child or an elderly person. This can also save your dessert cost. You can select a good wedding cake from the catalogs of renowned confectioneries.

Author: Rashmi Karan

Increasing Trust of Parents over Matrimonial Sites India

There are dozens of matrimonial sites created every year in India. There are a number of matrimonial sites that claim to select the best life partner for you. These sites have been able to fully integrate into the countryside where 90% of Indian marriages are arranged by the family, which usually leaves little room for the individual to find their life partner on their own. Most of the times the requirements for suitable life partner on matrimonial websites are posted by the parents. This mindset however needs to be changed, as the choice of the individual matters nowadays.

It is a very common trend that a lot of couples meet through the internet, and after finding suitable compatibility, they decide to get married, and make sure that their parents approve. This then becomes an 'arranged marriage', and thus a way to cope up with the family and social pressure is found. These days, families also prefer searching the bride or groom for their child over Internet due to hassle-free services offered by these matrimonial sites India

With these sites, a person can make his choice according to his/her specific criteria, which often include religion, skin color, caste or even horoscopes. In Indian context, a person needs to marry within his/her social environment, which is a way of reinterpreting the tradition. Normally, a vast majority of Indians consider marriage as an alliance between two families.

Although, while searching the life partner on the matrimonial websites, one needs to be very cautious as there are a number of fake profiles. However, if you are enrolled with a paid service of any of the matrimonial sites India, the chances of fraudulence are very much reduced. It is up to the individual to check the background of the individual while finalizing any relationship.

Author: Rashmi Karan

Inter Caste Wedding in India

The Hindu religion in India has various castes and sub-castes. There is social stratification and the communities are divided into higher castes and lower castes. To a person from another country, especially from the Europe or American continent, this demarcation will be a very strange one. The entire concept of high and low creates a superiority complex in certain communities. The Brahmin matrimony occupies the highest position in the social ladder. This is what I learnt being a non-Indian.

There are also low castes communities in India belonging to the Shudras. This community is further divided in various sub-groups and one such group commonly found in India is the Chamar caste. The Chamar caste is engaged in the profession of leather manufacturing and exports. When I attended the Jatav Matrimonial function to document the different forms of marriage taking place in India, I came to know some more of the Chamar community and the Jatav population in particular.

The Jatav people are one of the largest tribal populations in India. They are known by various names like Jatia or Jatba in the state of Jammu. The community members are settled in various parts of India, and have large concentration of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Eastern Rajasthan and North-West Madhya Pradesh. The community members also reside in the neighboring country of Nepal. Since they belong to the lowest strata in the Hindu social order, they are part of the Scheduled Castes in India. They are also known as Dalits.

Jatav Matrimonial functions and rituals vary from state to state. They mostly follow the Hindu matrimonial customs. The members of this community speak mostly Hindi and the dialect of the place. The wedding alliances earlier were within the community as there was social stigmatization and restriction. This trend is slowly changing as I found after attending this wedding. The groom is from the Jatav community whereas the bride belongs to higher caste Hindu. This is a heartening trend, which I hope catches with other Indians as well

Author: Shipra Sinha

Peeping into the mind of the bride

No doubt, wedding day is the most amazing day in the lives of both bride and groom. But, for bride, it is the day filled with loads of emotions. I think a bride, goes through tons of emotions throughout the day, the major ones being the sadness and happiness. Tears seem to be like the best friends, they accompany not only bride, but even her family members all day during the marriage ceremonies. Even the rare moments, called the tears of happiness can also be witnessed during this occasion. Shades of the happy, sad, nervous, anxious, chilled, cool, surprise moments are experienced by the bride in a single day.

One of my friend, who got married recently, told me, that the day of the marriage seems like a long day, its not at all like a usual day, it seems like you live so many days and relations in that one day. Actually you get to know the meaning and sanctity of all relations on the day of your marriage. Actually I too believe that, the moments, when the maternal uncle, mother, father, grandparents, perform different rituals with the bride are speechless, they are times, which are priceless and a girl only, when in the form of a bride, gets to earn and practice those moments.

Each mantra or spiritual rhyme recited by the priest, takes the bride away from her parents and maternal family, leading her life towards new beginning with new family and new relatives. The most emotional and touching moment in the marriage, is when the girl leaves her maternal house and heads towards her new house with her husband. Though, the happiness and the majesticity of the feeling of a new life, full of happiness and joys is beyond description, but anyhow the feeling of leaving your family behind, and that this house will no longer be yours, certainly overpowers the happiness and makes you as a bride so feeble and full of tears. All these emotions are very personal and close to the heart of the bride, so the groom should always try and understand these emotions which a bride goes through at the time of their wedding, and should always support her, in starting a new life, filled with all the smiles and happy moments.

Marriages : Made in Heaven, Celebrated on Earth

Everyone believes in existence of a superpower above us and some name it as GOD. God has made a soul mate for everybody and brings them together through the eternal bond called marriage. These marriages are celebrated luxuriously and elaborately on earth, especially in Indian customs.

Marriages lead to physical, mental and spiritual unison of a couple. A successful marriage demands love, understanding, mutual respect, trust, commitment and togetherness of a couple. Marriage is considered to be a very sacred relation that unites two individuals from different walks of life. The relationship of a man and woman is incomparable to any other relation that they share throughout their lives.

Marriages are, definitely, made in heaven else how do you think that two people with different upbringing and different opinions are bonded together. What is the force that unites only those two people as a couple and not with some one else. Most of us believe that it is destiny that makes you meet all the people in your life and so is the same with life partners. Destiny is written by God or at least directed by that superpower that operates above all of us.

He decides in advance whom to bring together to be tied in the bond of lifelong commitment and unison. And then, this matrimony is arranged and solemnized with pomp and grandeur to let the world meet your better half. In fact, this is why, marriages in India are performed royally and people spend most of their savings on the wedding. Such grand weddings are dream-like where the bride and the groom are the only center of attraction for all the guests and relatives.

Every girl, even today after such modernization, dreams of getting married in a fairy tale kind of a way. And then, why not, this is the most memorable moment in a person’s life.

Changing your name after marriage

Marriage is the most important decision of our life. It is the decision, which not only changes the whole lifestyle of a human being, but it also leads to the change in identity of a bride. There are hardly any changes, which a guy goes through after marriage, other than the responsibilities, he takes of his family. But, if we talk about the bride, there are loads of changes and modifications that a bride has to adopt to lead a hassle-free life. The first and the foremost step towards change is shifting of her home, from her maternal house to the house of her in- laws, which is still ok, but the next thing, which any girl is most resistant to is the change of her name.

The change in the surname, is a common practise, which has been followed since ages in Indian marriages, but with the changing times and the girls becoming more independent and adopting modern ways to lead her life, she is not ready to accept the change in her name. According to the girls these days, how can they change their identity or the name, with which they have lived for so many years? And plus adding the whole name of your husband to yours becomes too lengthy and difficult to pronounce. In fact some girls these days, are too conscious that they just don’t change their name at all, not even their surname. Some brides add their in- law’s surname at the end of their original full name to mark their alliance with the new family, which I think is the best way.

These things are very debatable and have even lead to some family disputes, but at the end it depends on the mutual understanding of the bride and the groom. The mental set- up and the thinking of the groom and his family plays a very important role here, because if the family is very strict and blindly follows all the old rituals and customs, then the bride in any case would have to bear the full additional changes to her name, but if the groom or the family understand her emotions, then they would surely support in keeping her original name as it is with an add-on of their family name, forever. And if you are among few of the latter cases, then I must say, are the blessed one, because in such a modern society even, you would find very less families, who understands the attachment and the emotions that a bride has for her name and family.

Wedding card - the official announcement of the marriage

Marriages are definitely the most exciting moment in our life, its not only you who is happy for the marriage ceremony, but the family as a whole takes part in its preparations and rituals. The first and the most important step towards the announcement of the wedding alliance is the wedding card. The invitation card for the marriage is what, which declares the togetherness of the couple, with their names written on the card, next to each others. I hope you will agree with me on the fact that, a prospective groom or bride feels very different and relaxed after seeing their names written together on the wedding card. The announcement makes their relation official and from then the countdown for the wedding starts.

In most of the Indian weddings, as far as I have observed, the first wedding card is presented in front of the lord or the religious god of the family, to seek his blessings for a successful wedding life. Invitation of the wedding needs to be sent to all the family members and friends. With our couples adopting the modern methods, invitation cards, these days, are also sent via emails. In most of the cases, these wedding cards are the scanned copies of the original invitation, but many perspective brides and grooms are also seen designing cards for their marriage themselves.

Designing your wedding card, has its own charm, all the dreams and designs you have always thought of, you can implement that to your card. A lot of innovation and creativity is required for the same, and the card should be a result of the prior discussion with your partner. Disseminating self- made cards among your friends makes you feel proud and contended at the same time. In fact, some couples, even design the print format of the wedding card, which goes to all the relatives and friends. This not only saves the money of the designing part, but also the happiness and the jolliness felt inside is something which cannot be expressed in words.

Marriage makes a person responsible

There are various stages to which one gets encountered during his life time. Other than the phases of being a child, teen, young, mid-age and then old, we classify our life, generally on the basis of life before marriage and after marriage. A person is said to undergo various changes during these two phases. A lot of difference in terms of lifestyle and change in habits is observed with the transformation of a person from the tag of unmarried to married. Not only the status of a person changes from single to married, but a sense of responsibility is also felt by the married couple.

We generally say the man or the guy has to be responsible because he has to withhold the responsibility of a family; he is the one who needs to take care of the financial as well as the emotional status of the family members. But if we see today’s scenario, its not only the husband who is entitled with the family responsibilities, equal contribution is made by the wife also, whether its in term of finances or other home responsibilities. Both of them are aware of the fact that, a balance needs to be maintained between the demands and their accomplishments.

In the young stage, we are never made to work or felt accountable for the factors which help in running a smooth and healthy family life. But as we grow, we ought to realise our functions and role in the family. But marriage is a stage, when one gets to realise and implement his assigned roles and responsibilities. Wed- lock is the ultimate relation shared in a man’s life, where he gets to learn various new things as well as makes his partner mould according to his requirements, it a relation of give and take, the basis of which is love and understanding. It actually makes a person more thoughtful, strong, understanding, patient, co-operative, and much more to keep the wheels of the family rolling in the right direction.