Meet me at the poruwa in your white Saree and 300 relatives: Lets get married Lankan style

These days I cant log onto my face book without being assaulted by wedding albums!!! Maybe its the water because, everyone seems to be in a mating for life frenzy. The sri lankan wedding is always a double whammy, because there is always a home coming celebration shortly after. Traditionally the homecoming is held by the grooms side to welcome the new bride. However, it has been said ( By my mother) that not so long ago homecoming were a way of announcing the purity of the families newly acquired female. Where the grooms mother would checks the bedsheets from the couples first night together, so as to make sure the bride was a virgin. This is then announced to all the gathers at the homecoming and by chance if she was unable to prove this, no celebration is held and the girls sent back home packing. So basically, a girls worth was based on her producing a couple of droplets of blood on white sheet!!!. Though, I'm sure there are some mothers who are still concerned that their son has acquired a chaste maiden to enjoy his two minutes of pleasure. Such arcadic practices are no longer preformed in public or during the homecoming. These days homecomings are more an excuse for the grooms uncle's get shit faced and celebrate that their boy got laid ( finally!!!) and the aunties to discuss the faults of the wedding.

My own parents didn’t have a wedding or an homecoming. I instead one day after only 8 months of knowing each other, they decided go into the registrars office and sign piece of paper!!! As a young girl, I found the lack wedding photos, no celebration and neither of my parents wearing a ring highly disappointing. I loved looking at the fat heavy wedding albums that people thrust on you during social visits. Got excited every time the family received an invitation to one, though usually my parents never attended them. This obsession with weddings still continues to this day. Its probably the sri lankan aunty gene in me being activated, for I love pouring over the suitability of table decor,flower arrangements, the bridal saree, the colours and the groom looks etc. So, this sudden burst of people getting hitched has provided me numerous hours of pleasure as I stalked the their albums.

A Sri lankan wedding is no easy feat. Because, the brides family is expected to bear the cost of the wedding, the wedding preparation start the day of the girls birth!!! Dads will start slaving away to accumulate her dowry and mothers they will start a collection of gold jewellery. The aim is that their good little sri lankan girl scores a boy from a 'good' family: Preferably he will be able to speak a bit of English and is an old boy of school in Colombo (2 to 7). Thus, when this day comes to pass every family is resolved to have the biggest and the most expensive wedding they can muster. This is mainly the one chance to outdo past weddings of their own extended family and show their wealth and might to the grooms family. So in sri Lanka a wedding is not just about the marriage of two individuals, actually its not about them at all. Its about showing off, attention and announcement of wealth and social status.

Weddings are a time when the Aunties come out full swing. You will hear a lot of “ you know when Mr so and sos daughter got married they imported their invitations written on eggs from England neh, it was very expensive lu, but Ballanna our stupid servant kella used it to make an omelet no terrible it was ” or “ aiyooo, for god sake don’t use those catering fellows, at Mr so and sos sons wedding those fellows didn’t give papadums with the fried noodles, terrible it was!”. They know who makes the best saree jackets, usually two sizes small so their back fat is suffocated! The make up lady on galle road that applies foundations three shades lighter than the skin and only applies a plum colour of lipstick. All this wealth of information is freely exchanged between each other, the mother of the bride and anyone that will listen.

While, Aunties still play a pivotal role in weddings, lately there are many wedding planners who have taken over some of the responsibilities that were usually preformed by the aunty squad. For once the aunties have quite gracefully renounce their authority on these matters. Though one can say this was because, it provides them with more opportunities to say “ I told ramani no, that the Hilton was better quality u know, but noooooo....she told that this wedding fellow had recommended the Taj!! stupid fellow, they should have listen to me neh...what to do now”. So, while the aunties have retired the wedding planners have taken over. Sadly, though this means that now generally most weddings in Colombo now look the same. Hallmark features being massive tires of cake, ice sculptures of the couples initial ( just in case the guest forget their names), photographers who make all wedding parties do this thumbs up pose, and overdecorated cake boxes.

Apart from the Parents, Aunties,Wedding planner, and the Hotel, there only one other important decision which is what cousins will make it onto the Bridal party. This decision can make or break a family forever. This is because, sri lankan families easily take offence. Unlike in the west, where the bridal party consist of people you actually love like your best friend in Sri Lanka you HAVE to ask your family. What is worse is that you cant just get away by asking your favourite cousin to be part of the big day because, this may upset the mother of another cousin. So you have to ask all your unmarried cousin to join you; even the bitchy ones that you hate and hates you back!!!

This attitude extends to not just the bridal party it goes for inviting guest too. Usually, the bridal couple will only really know about one third of the guest. All the rest will consist of extended family of the parents who meet the couple for the first time that day, Dads collage buddies who are invited just so your dad has someone to get drunk with, Women that your mum invite because she dislikes them and they dislike her, people the parents work with, and anyone who lives overseas that happen to be in Colombo for holiday.

When the final magical day arrives, all 560 guest will rock up at the reception a good half an hour late than the time mentioned on the invitation. The women will all be wrapped in colourful sarees dripping in gold, faces coated with pale foundation, and slight patches perspiration covering the back of their saree jackets. The men will all look identical in black ill fitting suites, a bright shirt matching the colour of his partner aunties saree jacket and holding a large package under his arm ( usually a toaster, a tray or a rice cooker) and eyes darting back and forth searching for the bartender. After sitting their derrieres down, the uncles will run off to secure a glass of arrack, aunties might accept a glass of wine and handful of murukku to munch on and start around of ' aneeh...you have put on no?' The cousins who were too young to be in the bridal party will walk off in groups to check out the cousins of the other side and indulge in a bit a flirting. Over the next couple of hours the uncles will get increasingly drunk, the young will start swapping numbers, and the aunties will have intense conversations about the troubles of finding a good servant girls, during this time the bridal couple waltz in get on the poruwa, couple of young girls will sing a blessing, a coconut will be broken, the couple will sit around for a bit, the brides maids will serve wedding cake, Buffet will start after which everyone will start lining up and forget all about the bridal couple. After dinner, the dance floor will be open up, after the couple first dance they will disappear to into a void and the floor will be taken up by the drunk uncles and the young cousins while the aunties mill about on the side line itching to hike up their sarees and join the dance.As the night progresses the number of English songs played will diminish greatly and be overtaken by frenzy of baila, the uncles will become increasingly loving towards the now sweat covered saree aunties and a few brazen young cousins will go for 'walks' in the garden!. By this time no one remembers whose wedding it is and the couple will return for few minutes, the bride now looking like curry Cinderella in violet ball gown the groom hmm....no one cares what he is wearing, a few more photos will be taken and then its time to go. 

People will chuck rice or silly string at the couple ruining their well designed costumes and the will flee in terror into rental Hummer and disappear into wedded life. The guest will then go to collect shoes, handbags, husbands, children and other peoples wedding cake!!!! The wedding now over, the guest will congregate at the hotel foyer waiting for their cars and while they wait they begin discussing the wedding and pointing out its faults. This conversation will then continue on till the day of the homecoming when they all get together all over again to rehash their ideas and add to it the faults of the homecoming!!!!!