2016 Oct 12
Alright, so here in Sri Lanka, we don’t call it the “summer”, we call it the wedding season! The months June to August are absolutely packed with weddings. It is the beautiful union of two hearts who hid their romance from their parents and the rest of the world for many many years and when the ‘age was right’, emerged out of their hiding shells and finally claimed they wanted to be united as one. From family weddings to friends getting married, nakath dates, one on top of the other, make it one of the most stressful times of the year.
As you possibly realized by now, I am an expert on this. Having been to one too many Sri Lankan weddings, here’s a few things I’ve observed.
- Working out last minute isn’t going to help
If you’re going to tell me that you haven’t frantically run to the gym or even around your own garden a week before the wedding in hopes of losing a few pounds, then you are lying through your teeth.
Ladies, these workout routines on Pinterest that claim to give you a flat stomach and a hot bod in just 7 days is a fallacy. No 25 sets of crunches or leg raises will get you to your goal in a week, or a month. So the next time you decide to work out like a pro and dedicate an hour or two of your daily time to it (only a week or two before the wedding), you might as well give up before you’ve even started.
- Don’t tell your family the insides on the couple’s relationship
If your cousin’s getting married, chances are you probably know what went down in their relationship and how they ended up here. If it’s your friend, then you can probably write a series of books on it. However, this level of information should not be allowed within the couple’s family, your family or any other older relatives. Chances are, the couple probably had a 5 year long relationship before they ended up in marriage but the parents were brought to light perhaps 2 years down the line. (Sri Lankan and proud!)
You wouldn’t want the couple having parental problems on their big day!
- Don’t drink
We all know that in our culture, weddings are really not ‘private’ affairs. It’s not a closed ceremony with only a very few people attending the occasion. Because if we were to do that, your great grandma’s sisters daughter would hold it against her, right?
Weddings are where you are introduced to a whole new group of faces and your relationship to them is explained to you by your parents. You find unknown aachchi’s touching your face and stroking you hair, which by the way, took you 2 hours and Rs.5000 to get done.
Now since we’ve agreed that weddings are where your entire family tree in under one roof, we also need to put a golden rule in place. DO NOT DRINK AND FUNCTION. See, the last thing you’d want is all the aunties bickering over how they saw you look at a bottle of alcohol, or sit close to the table where the uncles (their husbands) are pissed drunk. Better safe than sorry.
- Heels are always a bad idea
This is by far what makes me cringe the most. It depresses me to know that wearing heels is a terrible idea. In retrospect, heels not only give you new found confidence, but it also flatters your body shape, especially if you’re in a saree.
But wearing heels to a wedding is a terrible idea. By heels, I mean stilettos. Your 3 inch box heels or platforms or even a good pair of wedge heels are good to go. As long as they are under 3.5 inches, then you’re out of trouble’s way. See, the thing is, dancing in massive heels is almost impossible, and with the baila and the papare around, you wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to go onto the dance floor and break a few moves. If you’re at a Buddhist wedding, then standing throughout the one and a half hour poruwa ceremony is another burden for your feet. All in all, I know you girls can relate to me when I tell you that stilettos only have you ending up with swollen feet, a terrible back ache and wishing you never wore them in the first place.
- No, saree jackets won’t fit you 3 months after you last wore them
This I learnt the hard way. If you’ve already got an outfit idea in mind, chances are that you are least likely to try it out weeks before the wedding. You are most likely to try it on a few days before the occasion leaving too little time for amends to be made.
This has to be an essential wardrobe rule – Try out your clothes a full week before the occasion so that you wouldn’t struggle with it in the last minute. If your jacket is too tight, get it remade or loosen the stitches, dry-clean it, pair up the right shoes and accessories. Leaving all of this to the last minute only adds to the stress.
- If you’re a part of the retinue, you’re likely to not want to get married
For everyone who’s been a bridesmaid/groomsmen, I hear ya. Weddings can be beyond stressful if you’re a part of the retinue. Straight up, it’s much more work than you getting married. Ultimately, you end up hating it and not wanting to do it again.
Some of the worst parts include having to wake up in the dead of night because your hairdresser and make-up artist requires at least 6 hours to ‘put your face on’ and then having to survive through another 3+ hours of photo shoots, it does not sound fancy as it does when you read this. At the end of it all, you are tired, you are sleep deprived and you should not be messed with.
But I have to agree, the memories you take home are worth all the pain and the stress you go through.
- Pick the right saree
This is another golden rule girls. See, there’s a few saree trends around, the lace sarees, the embroidery ones, pure silk ones, the ones with a mix of lace/net and the chiffon but whatever it is, always think about the shape and size of your body before picking a saree.
Sometimes, net sarees or lace sarees look amazing when it’s on the dummy, but usually, unless you have a flat stomach or a hot bod, when draped on you, you wouldn’t look as good as you would if you wore something else. Be mindful of what material your saree is and how suitable it is to your body shape and size.
- No, do not drink and dance
General Rule: Do not drink and function. You don’t want to look like the drunk uncle on the dance floor. You also wouldn’t want to embarrass your spouse or parents by getting too drunk. If this is you, usually, then this is a sign that you need to stop embarrassing yourself.
- Talk to everyone – Do table rounds
Doing table rounds is pretty stressful since there’s so many people you probably know and so many people that to you, are strangers, but apparently are related to you. When your mom or grandma are going around doing table rounds, maybe just talk to a few people on the way. You don’t want to be labelled as the silent kid or compared to your other cousin who “came and said hi to us”.
- Don’t feast on the buffet
For most of us, buffets are god’s gift of an abundance of food. You probably won’t be thinking of this while you’re in the queue to serve yourself, you can only relate to this after you’ve feasted on the mountain of food you served for yourself. One, you probably think you can eat as much as you think you can, but chances are that you’d end up wasting the food. And two, your saree jackets are literally so tight they are almost sewn to your body, the discomfort caused from overloading yourself with food is not worth it in the end.
Have we missed out on anything? Tell us what you have learnt from the nakath season!
