- Hi, I'm Beryl
and today's video is going to be a little bit different.
I needed a small break from cooking,
(Beryl gasps)
(Beryl shouts)
(container thuds)
(liquid sizzles)
oh shit!
And I thought that a fun video would be
to share my Indian wedding with all of you.
(upbeat music)
I'm not really used to doing story times,
so luckily I have a ton of footage
so you don't have to just watch me talk
and you get to see really beautiful dancing
and outfits instead,
but here it goes.
(Beryl laughs)
I met my husband through a dating app.
Here we are looking so cute.
We dated for two years and then got engaged
and got married a year later.
We had an American wedding,
you know pretty typical.
You know I had a white dress.
He had a really nice suit.
And then a couple of months later,
we flew to India to have our big Indian wedding.
And that is where the footage will begin.
That was my transition, hard transition, whoop!
(Beryl claps)
(upbeat Indian music)
So I got married almost four years ago,
in a city called Moradabad.
That is, let me show you a map, hold on.
(Indian music)
So Moradabad is here and Uttar Pradesh.
It's just a couple of hours north of New Delhi.
(Indian music)
If you don't know, Indian weddings are a big affair.
I mean you probably do know
but maybe you've never been to one.
There are multiple days of ceremonies,
outfit changes, tons of guests.
It's a whole thing.
So, I was a total fish out of water
and really didn't understand
what was happening most of the time.
(Beryl laughs)
But day one was an event called the Sangeet.
And the Sangeet is where you get your henna done,
had my hands and arms,
I had my feet.
(Beryl laughs)
It was a long process
but it turned out so beautiful.
And it's really just kind of a day for mostly the women
to dance, get their henna done and get ready
for the evening event, which is called the Cocktail.
And by the way, weddings can go in different orders,
this is just how mine was.
And the cocktail was,
(Beryl laughs)
just wild, this huge hotel space.
And we had the entire backyard with a ginormous stage.
I had the most beautiful dress that my sister-in-law,
helped me design.
It was modeled after this designer named Sabyasachi that,
I am still just absolutely obsessed with.
And pretty much during the cocktail,
you drink a lot of alcohol, eat a lot of food
and dance for hours.
♪ Give me ♪
♪ Something new ♪
♪ I want it back ♪
♪ Through and through ♪
♪ Just do it ♪
♪ I'll let you rule ♪
♪ I know you like to break the rules ♪
♪ And I cry ♪
- And there are performances.
So my friends who came from America
to my wedding, they did a dance.
I did a dance with my sister.
(upbeat music)
I did a dance with my husband and his family,
his parents, his aunt.
His sister did a dance.
My parents did a dance.
It was just so much fun.
I feel like that whole night,
my face hurt from just smiling so much.
And it was just like, it was just so special and really fun.
And the next day, there are more ceremonies.
The morning after the Cocktail party,
was a very early morning ceremony.
It was called the Chuda ceremony,
where I had my Chuda bracelets put on
which were my bridal bracelets.
They're these red bracelets that go almost halfway up
or maybe more than halfway up your forearm.
And these signify that you're a new bride,
and you wear them for however long you want.
I wore mine for a month.
I didn't sleep in them,
(Beryl laughs)
but I wore them every day,
even when I came back to New York.
And I had just kind of jewelry adorned all over my body.
It's kind of a beautification ceremony
for the bride to get ready to get married.
There is another ceremony that happens
and it's called the Haldi.
And this is where turmeric get put over you.
We had done that actually at my in-laws house,
so it wasn't a part of the main wedding ceremony,
although often it can be.
The beautification process complete, I then left.
Went to go get my hair done, my makeup done,
which was the whole look.
Indian bridal makeup was very different makeup
than what I'm used to.
I mean, I don't even wear makeup really,
so this was a lot.
And I did ask the woman doing my makeup
to kind of like reel it back a little bit.
I just didn't wanna feel, so unlike myself.
She says, as she was wearing like a full lehenga
and like hair jewelry,
(Beryl laughs)
and like obviously it was not looking like myself,
but that was like the one thing I felt
like I had a little bit of control over.
But also this is when I get to put on
my bridal lehenga which...
(Beryl sighs)
(gentle instrumental music)
I mean, it was really complicated.
I had no idea what I was doing
when I picked out my bridal dress.
My sister-in-law helped me so much.
She pretty much was just face-timing me in India,
at all these fabric shops, there was just beading
and sequence and just...
There was design all over it.
(Beryl sighs)
It was just so special, especially when you compare it
to my American wedding dress,
which was just like white
and straight with like a small bow in the back.
(Beryl laughs)
It's just night and day.
Truly night and day.
But, there's another ceremony that happens
which is for the groom.
Finally the groom gets something.
(Beryl laughs)
So the groom ceremony is called the Baraat.
And this is where the groom enters.
Maybe you've seen it with like elephants.
My husband entered on a horse and he looked so cute.
I mean I wasn't there to see it,
but I saw the video.
And there's music playing and everyone's dancing,
and it's like this big kind of event
that the whole family on both sides...
Families are escorting the groom kind of into his new life.
My parents were there to welcome them.
And it was just this like very sweet moment
of the two of our families joining.
And, to be honest, you know, I don't think that
either of our parents ever imagined this as their future.
I don't think it was in anybody's plans
but everybody loves each other.
And so I would consider myself very lucky.
(gentle Indian music)
Anyway, groom is in,
I got to arrive,
I walked under this beautiful kind of like
canopy with flowers hanging down.
And, it's not actually the wedding ceremony
that happens yet.
So, I go onto the stage
and we put these beautiful necklaces,
made out of orchids around each other's necks.
And then we sit for photos.
And that...
(Beryl gently exhales)
(gentle Indian music)
If anybody else has ever been in my place here,
and you know what I'm talking about,
that photo section when you're sitting on that couch
and it's just everybody comes in to take your photo.
And it's just like...
(Beryl inhales and exhales)
I think by the end of it I was just like this.
(gentle Indian music)
Unmoving, stone cold
(Beryl laughs)
just like couldn't even smile anymore.
It was exhausting.
Not much happens until the wedding ceremony.
In our wedding ceremony happened very late at night
because that was the auspicious time.
I think that the auspicious time was 2:00 am.
Couldn't have been auspicious at like,
you know, 11:00 pm or 10:00 pm.
And, it was actually this really beautiful ceremony
and the electricity kept going out,
so it was almost, you know, it's kind of annoying
but also really nice 'cause it was just us lit by the fire
with the last of the last people.
People who really cared about us were left
to watch us actually get married.
(upbeat music)
There were a lot of traditions that happened
in my wedding ceremony that were things
that his parents wanted
and that their religion wanted.
I'm not honestly, like,
I don't really understand all of them,
but I know that we tied our cloths together,
walked seven times around the fire,
(upbeat music)
and Bob's your uncle,
(upbeat music)
I was married.
(Beryl chuckles)
The experience was something that honestly changed me.
I learned how to be comfortable in being uncomfortable,
and that's something that...
I think it's actually really important lesson to learn.
And on top of that, I kind of feel like it
gave me a small footing in the culture of my husband
and my husband's family.
And that culture is really important in our everyday life.
So with that, my story time is over.
I hope that you guys liked this video.
And I will see you next week
with a normal cooking video again.
Bye.
(Beryl laughs)
(gentle Indian music)