Gujurati wedding rituals

Trupti8584

Hi Ladies,

FI and I are planning to include both(Gujju and SouthIndian) cultures in our wedding. I thought I'd ask here about pre/wedding rituals in Gujurati weddings. I have googled it a bit but want to know what you did/plan to do in your wedding? I know there is Ganesh Pooja,Griha shanti, Haldi(?)...what is the order? and which one of these are done separately on both sides?
Thanks!

kpwedkk

Hi Trupti,
I can help you on the South Indian rituals - and I'm googling for the Gujarati rituals

According to this website, this is the order for a Gujarati wedding -
- Sagaai (engagement ceremony)
- Garba (both bride and groom, and families come together)
- Pithi (also called Haldiwaan, where the bride and groom in separate homes come to apply haldi to the bride, or to the groom)
- Mehendi (Bride, and wedding party does this, groom doesn't)
- Mandap Mahurat (Prayers to Lord Ganesh - usually done a few days before the wedding in both the bride's and groom's homes by a Pandit/Priest)
- Griha Shanti (matching of horoscopes, the family and relatives come together for this)

For SouthIndian wedding - (link)
- Mehendi (bride only, not groom)
- Haldiwaan (bride and groom in separate homes)
- Silver thread ceremony (groom only)

There are South Indian aspects that were added to our wedding as well -
- Talambralu (rice throwing shower) (link)
- Sthaalipaakam (groom adorns bride's toes with silver rings)
- Mangalsutra ceremony (adorning the bride with the mangalsutra, and 5 married ladies wishing prosperity)

For our wedding, we did North Indian/Caribbean (me), and South Indian (DH) -
- Mehendi (me, family and friends)
- Haldiwaan (me, and DH (but DH was in a separate home)
- Silver thread (DH)
... you can see from the program the steps we took...

Hope that helps

andamu

Trupti,

Our official marriage ceremony will be an American-style ceremony, but we are including a number of Gujarati rituals before and after (for reference, FI is Gujarati Jain, and I am American/non-religious).

Before:

Sagaai - engagement ceremony (kind of; we did some rituals but not all, and then there was an exchange of gifts)

Griha Shanti - puja to determine auspicious date (my FMIL did this, not sure how extensive the puja was, but we did choose an auspicious date; in any case, it was not a whole-family event)

Haldiwaan/Pithi - groom's family only

Mehendi - this will be a non-traditional, joint family event because it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for a lot of my family and friends, and my FMIL is organizing

Baraat - I don't know about this yet, but my guess is that they may do a traditional baraat leading up to our Western ceremony

Post-wedding:

Ghar nu Laxmi - welcoming of the bride to the groom's home

Aaki Beki - some games to welcome the bride, this may be one of the things my FMIL is planning to do

Puja - this is where I am not useful, but there is a post-wedding puja that I have seen done among the women of the groom's family before, but I do not know the name of it

Hope that helps a little!

Trupti8584

Thank you ladies...
Andamu..Do you remember what rituals you did for the engagement ceremony? I think there's a 'satyanarayan' katha/puja post wedding. Btw do you know what kind of games are played?