Hindu/Catholic Ceremony

@Tulip, thanks for the info about Indian weddings. I have only a tangential familiarity with Indian weddings. From what I understand one of the most common traditions in India is that practically the entire town attends the celebration. Has that been your experience? I wondered if it's really feasible unless the couple comes from well to do families.

My parents did catholic ceremony.

but now, i'll do it the christian ceremony

Howdy. I've done a lot of western style ceremonies that have included one Hindu partner and they have been done in a number of different ways.

Sometimes, the traditional Hindu ceremony (a little abbreviated) will happen first, followed by a break and lunch, then a short legal western ceremony, usually non-denominational. The Hindu officiant rarely signs the license; I almost always do. This usually takes place at a reception venue with hotel facilities because the groups are usually large and many people travel. We do our ceremony in the same setting, which is usually very elaborate and gorgeous. After our ceremony, cocktails and dinner.

I have done several where we do a very intimate ceremony before the large Hindu ceremony, with just the family and the license signing. They break, go into the Hindu ceremony and then the reception. I personally love this option.

The other option would be to have a ceremony that incorporates both Hindu elements (like the seven steps) and Catholic style elements (scripture, blessings) though clearly the sacramental legitimacy issue isn't in place.

Still another option, and I've done this too, is to have the Hindu ceremony on one day and the Catholic one the next or visa versa.....

Personally, I think doing both a full mass and a classic Hindu ceremony plus a reception on the same day is too much of a marathon for most humans, including you.

So I guess the decision is how important is it for you and your to have a full Catholic mass AND a classic Hindu ceremony. Then you can go from there.

But it is pretty much a given that a real Catholic priest is not going to come and co officiate with a Hindu priest in an off premise location, and I can't imagine a Hindu ceremony happening in a Catholic church.

I went to a wedding once where the bride had a strict Catholic Spanish monolingual family and the groom's dad was the pastor of a local Protestant Church. In order to avoid tons of family discord they had a full Catholic mass in Spanish and then a ceremony at the groom's church. Only the brides family who spoke Spanish and the bridal party were at the Catholic mass and everyone else went to the Protestant wedding in which the reception immediately followed. The bride and groom said it was exhausting...but if doing both is important to you...it's possible.

Also you would probably do a simple ceremony instead of the full mass since your FH isn't Catholic. That would make the Catholic ceremony 30-40 minutes

TL/DR: Yes, entire towns can attend weddings and it would be considered an honor to be able to host them all.

@Rev.Patrick - From the weddings I've attended, that's seems accurate. I can't speak for all Indian weddings but I haven't been to a wedding in India that didn't involve a massive amount of people.

Here's an example for my cousins wedding - the last Indian wedding I attended in India. This was a few years ago and in terms of finances, they would be considered lower middle class:

His was an arranged marriage and he met his now wife and got married within a month. Within a few days of both of them agreeing to get married, we had invitations. Over 80 invitations for each side and since it was an arranged marriage, neither families knew each other AND were from different towns, each family was in charge of distributing their own invitations so unlike the American weddings, there was no joint (or selective) guestlists, etc. On each side we then hand delivered the invitations to everyone we knew, including most houses in our town since it's easy to know everyone in town when the families have been there for generations. So at this point each side has about 80 families invited. We don't do things like adults only there so anyone that lives under the roof AND their relatives were invited. So we're talking about a few hundred guests and a good chunk of them are from the same town. Add to that relatives and friends that don't live in the town and again the list grows. During the actual day the reception was in a pretty big hall that could easily host over a thousand people since anyone in town can (and did) technically attend. People would come to eat and leave when done. It was not considered rude and we actually had quite a few homeless people come for the food and we had no problem with it. It was a community celebration and it was an honor to host.

Here's the difference on why we could invite entire towns in the span of a month without breaking the bank.

1. There are no absurd venue fees.

2. No expectations of things like an open bar.

3. We don't pay per person for meals.

4. The costs in general were just much lower.

5. Thousands aren't being spent on things like flowers, attire, or DJs.

Even in the U.S. I haven't attended an Indian wedding with less than 400 people. We invite anyone and everyone. The rule of 'if they pay, they get a say' is non existent. Parents get to invite anyone and everyone. My sister and BIL paid for their wedding and had 800 people. This included acquaintances of parents even if my sis/bil had never met them. The community is a big part of the Indian weddings we've attended.

With that said, I will be avoiding all the above. We're hosting a very small (50 people), non-religious ceremony, and barn reception complete with open bar and DJ.

@Tulip I watched the video and the album that is what i think I would like it was simple and a smooth transition Thank you so much for sharing! Are you having a wedding like this? I would like to chat more my email is **********@*****.*** @Maybride thank you for your help I guess posting on the thread did work!! How do I change my avatar? @celia thank you you have made some valid points! It easier to have somewhat of a guide could we chat? My email is above. )

You can't change the avatar on the app so do the following either on the browser in your phone or desktop:

Settings > Profile and Privacy Settings > Account Image > Change Image > Upload > Update Profile Settings

No, we're not going to have that kind of wedding. We're both agnostics now so won't have any distinct religious aspects.

Gotcha @tulip

My son and dil did the two ceremonies on different days especially since the Hindu ceremony was supposed to take place on an auspicious date.

A very good friend of mine did this last year. She had separate Hindu and Catholic ceremonies two days apart from each other.

I live FL and our wedding will be in CT. I don't know about having a full ceremony for both that'll take two days

There's a temple in CT and also a few in MA, if you want to call and ask if they can do a shorter ceremony. 1 hour ceremonies have become routine now, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

This sounds like it is going to be beautiful! Just wanted to say good luck and I believe tradition is beautiful and honoring both sides will be worth it in the end!

@MayBride Definitely will call around and ask. @MrsInSeptemeber thank you!! Good luck to you too

Hi Karen, we are doing something similar. I am going to be wearing the traditional Indian red, but I am doing a red anarkali and a haldi and mehndi ceremony prior. We are having a Christian style wedding though with an officiant. We wanted Indian food but I couldn't find a caterer I really liked so we are doing traditional American wedding food (chicken, potatoes, pasta...)

Where did you find your officiant? And if you don't mind me asking how much are that charging you? @sloka

There's also differences in the traditions between Hindus from India and Hindus from the West Indies.

I am marrying into a West Indian Hindu family so we are having a shortened Hindu ceremony (about 2 hours) the day before our American ceremony followed by reception.

As for your officiant- Is your Pundit not doing it? Our Pundit is doing both days for us, including the American non-denominational ceremony.

In my opinion (and our families opinions) it's way too much to do in one day if you want to incorporate a lot of tradition. On the 20th there are many activities that must be done with the groom and his mother (rubbing dye). The 21st will be full of cooking in preparation for the Hindu ceremony, then everyone will gather after the ceremony to eat the prepared food. Then to add another ceremony and reception as well- that would be far too exhausting. So, it's a 3 day wedding with 2 of those days including ceremonies.

The Hindu priest doing our wedding is also an officiant, so that is possible.

And, yes, if you want all of the tradition, 1 day is a lot. But, it sounds like you want an abbreviated version. We're doing just 1 day and 1 ceremony, cutting out a lot of the extra stuff.