Sneak Peek – Sree and Josh get married at the Hindu Cultural Center

This wedding was actually a two-part affair; first a full Indian wedding ceremony at the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center in Bothell, followed by a much more conventional (at least for Westerners) ceremony at the Seattle Municipal Courthouse.  Both ceremonies took place in the same day, with the Indian ceremony in the morning and the Courthouse ceremony in the late afternoon.

For those who have never been to an Indian ceremony (which is likely most of those reading this), it is very different from any kind of wedding you have probably ever seen.  For one thing, the typical duration of the ceremony is 90+ minutes, which leaves almost any other type of ceremony I have ever shot pretty far in the dust.  Though I did once shoot a Romanian wedding ceremony that lasted well over 2 hours!

I had never been to the Bothell temple before, and had no idea that it was even there.  It is a beautiful building surrounded by a huge parking lot, and apparently all that parking space is needed at times.  Sree and Josh opted to have the wedding on a weekday rather than the weekend because otherwise it would have been a mob scene at the temple.  As it was, our rather small group of 10 people (all family members of Sree and Josh) used one of the smaller rooms at the Temple, which was still large enough to easily accomodate a couple hundred people.

I always LOVE to photograph Indian ceremonies, both because the actual ceremony is so different than what I am used to but also because the women’s clothing is so beautiful.  Not to knock Western wedding gowns, but the colors of the Indian clothing are just stunning; and also a heck of a lot of fun to photograph!

Only the one photo to show you for now, but that’s what a Sneak Peek is all about, to get you excited to see more from the day!  I expect that I’ll have more from the Indian ceremony online in another day or two, and then do a separate posting for the Courthouse wedding.