Sree and Josh are married at the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center

Last Friday I worked with Sree and Josh and their families to photograph Sree and Josh’s wedding at the Indian Temple and Cultural Center, located in Bothell WA.  This was actually Part One of a two-wedding day; the first wedding being this one, a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony, and the second wedding a civil ceremony taking place at the Seattle Municipal Courthouse.  Sorry, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to see Part Two, I’ll be blogging that ceremony in a couple of days!

If you have never been to a Hindu/Indian wedding it is completely different from Western ceremonies, and if you ever have a chance to see one in person I highly recommend that you do so.  Unlike Western ceremonies, which concentrate almost exclusively on the bride and groom, Indian ceremonies not only include the parents of both the bride and groom but involve them extensively in the ceremony.  And unlike most Western ceremonies that last ~30 minutes, I have never been to an Indian ceremony that took less than 90 minutes, and some traditional Hindu ceremonies can last for 2-3 hours!  OK, some Catholic ceremonies might take an hour if there is a full mass, but most of those ceremonies consist of a priest talking to the bride, groom and the audience.  Hindu ceremonies, on the other hand, have the bride, groom and both sets of parents actively participating almost the entire time.

Present at the ceremony were Sree and Josh; Sree’s parents Surendran (Dad) and Saraswathy (Mom); Sree’s brother Vivek and sister-in-law Anu; Josh’s parents Fred (Dad) and Eileen (Mom); and sister Ashley and brother-in-law Rico.

The ceremony was held on a Friday rather than on the weekend because the Temple is so busy on weekends that a small ceremony like this one would have been overrun with the hundreds of people who visit the Temple.  Even so, we had quite a few unintentional photo-bombers manage to wander through the background during the ceremony.

I’m not going to try to take you through everything that happens during an Indian ceremony; I’m no expert and would undoubtedly use incorrect terms for the different parts of the ceremony.  But it begins with the officiant/priest taking the groom and his parents through a fairly elaborate ritual followed by the bride and her parents going through a similar ritual, before finally uniting the bride and groom during the final portion of the ceremony.

From a photographer’s standpoint these weddings are wonderful.  Beautiful colored saris are usually worn by the women, and the men (at least the Indian men) usually wear much more colorful clothing that seen at Western weddings.  The wedding accessories used for the ceremony are also quite colorful.  And an actual open fire is a very important part of all Indian ceremonies.  I have photographed Indian ceremonies at a number of different locations, and differing fire regulations can make this part of the ceremony a bit challenging.  I have seen everything from what looks like a small campfire in a miniature fire pit to a camping stove used to create the fire.  In this case the fire was contained by a small plate and/or a metal tray; you’ll see how it was used in the photos below.

Enough of my jabbering, look at the photos below to see the ceremony, the photos tell the story far better than I can.