weddings<\/a>. The dancing, the hoopla, the ceremony (I always cry), the making friends with random people by a fire pit at 1 a.m., the getting to celebrate the people I love most. But all that wouldn\u2019t feel right for me. I\u2019m lucky to have many wonderful and very close friends, but we meet up mostly one-on-one or in small groups. I despise being the center of attention, to the extent that I haven\u2019t even had a birthday party for over a decade.<\/p>\nBut then, I fell in love, got engaged some three years later, and, that night, spoke to my husband-to-be about what our wedding day would look like. He, completely justifiably, wanted to mark the moment with our families and friends. The compromise we reached was to find a sweet spot between an elopement that was just us, and a more traditional wedding\u2014a civil ceremony, and then drinks, canap\u00e9s, and cake with about 35 of our nearest and dearest.<\/p>\n
It felt doable in terms of budget and organisation, and I thought my mum would be pleased. In the years that I\u2019d been dating my partner, I knew she worried that we\u2019d just run away and get married one day without telling her. I knew it would mean a lot to her to be there as we exchanged rings and made our commitment to each other. But I also always saw the appeal of a romantic, spur-of-the-moment thing, which didn\u2019t involve anyone else.<\/p>\n
When I told my mum, she was thrilled. But I also quickly realised that I was entering a bit of a minefield. And maybe that would be the case for anyone, but it\u2019s especially the case for me because I\u2019m Indian.<\/p>\n
I was born in Kolkata, in north-eastern India, but moved to London with my mum aged seven. I\u2019ve been here ever since, and my mum moved back to Kolkata almost a decade ago. I have no family here\u2014I keep in touch with my mum, cousins, and aunts, and see them every year or so, when I travel back to India for weddings and other celebrations.<\/p>\n
Indian weddings have changed a lot over the many decades I\u2019ve been attending them. Many are now smaller, more modest, and more personal than the ones I went to as a child. But the word \u201csmall\u201d is relative. I\u2019ve been to weddings with about 800 guests. At many, I genuinely had no idea who the bride and groom were, and never saw them. I\u2019d gone with my aunts or grandparents, and it was often their neighbour\u2019s son\u2019s\/doctor\u2019s daughter\u2019s\/friend\u2019s granddaughter\u2019s wedding. I had a great time, ate well, gossiped, people watched. Now, smaller weddings are made up of about 300 people.<\/p>\n
The thing is, there\u2019s a neatness to an elopement. They\u2019re not particularly common in Indian communities, but if you and your partner secretly tie the knot without inviting anyone at all, you can (I think) actually sidestep the awkwardness and politics that usually accompanies wedding guest list planning. Hey, you didn\u2019t tell anyone, so technically no one is slighted, right? But, what\u2019s worse, I swiftly understood, is doing something very, very small. Because then, everyone<\/em> is slighted.<\/p>\nMy partner and I have a lot of friends who we wanted to be at our celebrations, plus about 10 family members who we\u2019re very close to. He doesn\u2019t have a big family, so for them, this decision wasn\u2019t controversial at all. But, on my side, the questions started right away. Could I have a separate wedding reception in India with another few hundred people? That\u2019s not something I wanted to do. Okay, but then how could I not invite all of these relatives? Well, I tried to explain, I wasn\u2019t really close to them. We didn\u2019t really talk. We don\u2019t really have a relationship. And if including them would mean not being able to include friends who I see all the time, who have been by my side for the most important moments of my life, that just wouldn\u2019t feel right. This, predictably, did not go down well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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