We’re halfway there. Well, maybe not in terms of effort, but we’re at least halfway through the weekend. It’s 1 a.m. now, Saturday night, and we’re winding down from an evening that included both an 80th birthday celebration for an aunt and a pre-wedding reception at the hotel where many of the out-of-town guests are staying. Both were great, although we did need to bow out early on the birthday celebration, and the multiple commutes meant more than an hour in the car. It’s much easier when you have an A/C car with a driver, but the time still adds up.
This morning gathering at the groom’s parent’s house went great, too. It was as loud and crowded and chaotic as you would expect a hundred guests in a 1500-square-foot house to be. We did have the rooftop terrace, but even with the shade tent erected for the event it was still hot up there and most people stayed inside where the A/C did its best to keep up with the body-generated heat and the frequently-opened doors. The extended family reconnected (the groom has something like forty first-cousins, not counting those by marriage), the in-laws from Japan met the extended family, and the dozens of friends who came from out-of-town began to understand what they were getting themselves into.
And most everyone had mehendi designs drawn on their hands and arms, and some on their feet. All the women did, of course, but many of the younger men were pulled into the mob mentality of it all and went along. I thought I was going to miss out entirely, because I kept getting sidetracked with other duties — by the end of the day I had made trips for hand soap, bobby pins, a thermometer, and bottled water — but in the end I wound up with complex, ornamental designs on both hands. Conveniently, while waiting for the design to set, I was unavailable to do anything else.
And so now we’re bedding down in one of the guest rooms at the wedding hall. I’m sharing a room with my sister and my cousin who are both now totally out cold. No wonder. It’s been a long day, and the first alarm is set for just a few hours from now, with the formal start of the event a few hours later. At this point it’s tempting to just stay up, but I know these few hours of sleep will be good for me. But it will be tough waking up!
