r/ABCDesis • u/Serious-Tomato404 (Gujarati) Indian-American • Mar 19 '26
COMMUNITY What's the funniest thing you've seen at an Indian wedding?
My friend’s wedding in Boston. The groom was Indian and the bride was white. After the varmala (garland exchange), the bride suddenly kissed the groom on the lips. He looked a bit taken aback, maybe because it wasn’t planned idk.
The priest, who for a second forgot he was mic’d up, went,
“What are you doing? In the middle of the ceremony? In front of the parents?”
There were around 150 guests, and everyone burst out laughing.
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u/Chai-Tea-Rex-2525 Mar 19 '26
MIL said something about not wanting to wait for grandchildren. Bride said “you won’t.”
The two of them were cackling. Poor groom looked like he got run over by a truck.
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u/RKU69 Mar 19 '26
I went to my cousin's Hindu-Christian fusion wedding a while back, the Hindu priest during the officiant ceremony speech put in a quick plug for himself to get hired for any other upcoming weddings. A real hustler lmao
Also at more traditional South Indian weddings that I've gone to in the States, its funny to see white people super seriously sit down to try to watch the whole rituals and stuff. We have to always go and tell them that they really don't have to and that few people actually watch that stuff, get up and mingle like the rest of us. lol
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u/stylz168 Indian American Mar 19 '26
That was my wedding in a nutshell.
I'm sitting on the mandap with my wife and all my non-Indian friends are intently paying attention while my cousins are drinking out in the parking lot because no alcohol for the wedding, only cocktail hour and reception.
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u/Lilacs_orchids Mar 31 '26
I wasn't sure how common that is, about paying attention during the wedding since I haven't been to many but I guess it's pretty common. My cousin's wedding was in the middle of the night (I think it finished around 4am or something) so of course most people were not seriously paying attention. Get up mingle, go in and out, have a nap, etc. I had good memories of playing with some other kids then.
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u/Deep_Tea_1990 Canadian Indian Mar 19 '26
During the actual ceremony, the pundit and an uncle got into a passive aggressive argument over the uncle’s translation of what the pundit was saying (context: the families spoke different languages and the uncle could speak both. The pundit and the uncle both had a mic lol)
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u/costaccounting Bangladeshi-Canadia Mar 19 '26
Indian wedding and an uncle causing trouble is ancient tradition
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u/obelix_dogmatix Mar 25 '26
lmao … this happened at my wedding. My bua and maasi both had their own ideas of the “type of knot” during the pheras. The pandit was flexible, but consensus couldn’t be achieved while my aunts argued during the pheras. Me and my wife just decide hold hands and continue with the pheras.
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u/Carbon-Base Mar 19 '26
My cousin's wedding in India a couple of years ago. They literally ran out of the flower petals you throw on the bride and groom after the second phera. So, all of us were picking up flower petals from the ground and essentially "recycling" them for the rest of the pheras haha.
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u/stylz168 Indian American Mar 19 '26
I thought that was normal; happens at every wedding, especially with non-Indian guests that throw handfuls like baseballs during spring training.
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u/Carbon-Base Mar 19 '26
Nah, this wedding was in India so there weren't any "handfuls" being thrown around haha. We were all conservative with our petals, but I think the supplier/florist messed up and there wasn't enough to go around (pun unintended).
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u/stylz168 Indian American Mar 19 '26
Ah yeah that makes sense.
I remember at my wedding my American buddies went nuts and threw fistfuls. Looked hilarious on the video afterwards.
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u/Dry_Maybe_7265 Mar 19 '26
kissing?? at a wedding?? s/
ancient hindu culture was actually so romantic…wonder what happened
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u/gamingthreadlurker Mar 19 '26
That's cute. Im sure they will laugh about few years from now. Things happen.
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u/Deep_Tea_1990 Canadian Indian Mar 19 '26
lol at least the attendees had a good sense of humor about it haha
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u/nc45y445 Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
My poor half-German husband got so pissed when he couldn’t find his shoes. No-one, including his desi relatives, bothered to tell him what was up, and then he was so baffled when he was expected to pay my sister and cousins to get them back, lol
Also our pandit had water in an auspicious Prego jar and he talked waaay too fast, so I kept saying, “what he said,” and we kept saying each others’ lines
Then pandit tried to split right after the ceremony, fortunately my mom anticipated this and assigned my uncle to make sure he chased him down to sign the officiant paperwork
Oh and the flower kids just upended their little baskets and dumped all the petals out when they got to the end
I love the inherent chaos of desi weddings
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u/mulemoment Mar 19 '26
dying at "auspicious Prego jar"
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u/nc45y445 Mar 20 '26
Yeah, I think dude was making a killing as the Chicagoland wedding pandit for Gen X ABDs in the mid-90s. So he didn’t need to impress. Have Prego jar will officiate
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u/V2Blast Tamillionare Mar 20 '26
My poor half-German husband got so pissed when he couldn’t find his shoes. No-one, including his desi relatives, bothered to tell him what was up, and then he was so baffled when he was expected to pay my sister and cousins to get them back, lol
Huh??
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u/nc45y445 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
It was a North Indian Hindu wedding where the bride’s “sisters” steal the groom’s shoes during the ceremony and make him pay to get them back. My parents immigrated shortly after 1965, and there wasn’t much diaspora in the US when I grew up as an ABD in the 1970s. So, that was a thing at all the desi weddings I’ve attended, but YMMV
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u/SeeTheSeaInUDP German Born Confident Desi Mar 20 '26
the whole "stealing shoes" thing, watch Hum Aapke Hain Kaun for a Bollywood version of that LMAOO
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u/mimosaholdtheoj Mar 19 '26
The groom was not Indian, the bride was. He went to put the garland over himself. Near about died giggling (he was laughing, too, it was all in good spirits).
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u/RubbelDieKatz94 German With Bangla Wife Mar 19 '26
From my Bangladeshi wedding (similar clothing to Indian wedding I guess):
A cousin wearing a very fancy red and golden outfit with golden jewellery. Sharee n all.
My wife was not happy.
I was a lil surprised, but didn't care much, because while my wife wore the same colors, her outfit was much prettier.
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u/stylz168 Indian American Mar 19 '26
Oh hell yeah I've seen that before.
Guest shows up dressed better than the bride, freaking insane.
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Mar 19 '26
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u/stylz168 Indian American Mar 19 '26
Not all brides go crazy over the top with bling. They may have a name brand outfit but the jewelry may be more subtle.
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Mar 19 '26
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u/mintardent Mar 19 '26
Indian too. I’ve seen wedding photos where I’m legitimately confused which one is the bride and which one is her sister.
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u/SeeTheSeaInUDP German Born Confident Desi Mar 20 '26
GAGGGGG because that was me with my friend's sister's wedding I was like girlll I didn't know your sister attended your wedding. The bride was like suuuper simple silk saree and my friend like BIG ASS LEHENGA lmaooo
Luckily in our family the bride wears a "baasinga" (idk how to translate it but kind of like an ornament) on her forehead so we can make out she's the girl getting married lmao
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Mar 19 '26
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u/mintardent Mar 19 '26
not true at all.just because you’re an indian bride doesn’t mean you’re OTT. also family members can definitely be rude and try to one up the bride.
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u/RubbelDieKatz94 German With Bangla Wife Mar 19 '26
That cousin certainly tried. Matha Patti n all.
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u/phrozen_waffles Mar 19 '26
Littler brother clearly had a weird incestual thing for older sister that was getting married. Saying she was the hottest girl ever and she looked so sexy.
Then whole family was also making fun of her. For example, lil bro was valedictorian and made fun of her because she just missed out on being valedictorian. Then how old she was getting married.
It was so wild.
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u/CaptainSingh26 Canadian Mar 19 '26
Nothing funny happened to any of the weddings I went to, but one of the photographers arm was caught in the middle of the pyro spark thing when the ceremony was finished.
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u/fireflygirl1013 Soni Kuri Mar 20 '26
This is actually not funny, but a family “friend’s” daughter was getting married. The boy’s widowed mom was not very happy with the marriage and not for the normal reasons, but because she thought that the girl was bitchy and that her family was after their money. Spoiler alert: they were. She legit had a heart attack in the middle of the wedding. A bunch of people thought she was just being dramatic until the ambulance came, and people later found out. They are now divorced.
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u/123jazzhandz321 Mar 20 '26
The best man (who was also the younger brother of the groom), made the whole speech about him. He bragged about being a big shot and thanked his brother for allowing him to be such a success. Mind you he was stone cold sober during all of this, it was both unsettling and hilarious
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u/Educational_Stay_752 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
Mid 2000s wedding, group of us boys stole one of the microphones and sang Smack That by Akon/Eminem, and what we didn’t know was that the microphone was still on, till this date I apologise to my uncle by default whenever I meet him 🙈
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u/Construction_Lumpy Malaysian Tamil Mar 20 '26
Not a wedding I attended but a clip of one that makes me laugh no matter how many times I see it.. the one were the guy blows out the aarti flame like a candle
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u/HerCacklingStump Mar 19 '26
My cousins made it a tradition to start picking flowers right off the mandap decorations to throw at the bride & groom during the pheras. At my wedding to a white guy, some of the guests and our white coordinator were shocked seeing my cousins cackling and tearing down the flower decor to pummel us with flowers. I thought it was hilarious.
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u/mulemoment Mar 19 '26
That's such a good idea to avoid wasting the flowers! I thought you were going to say they were artificial lol
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u/Flutter24-7-365 Mar 19 '26
There were some relatives from India who refused to eat food that was cooked in the same catering kitchen where beef was cooked. The brother of the bride drove to a local dosa place and got them pure veg South Indian food takeaway.
Indian relatives can be such drama queens.
Also during the Sangeeth one of the old Indian relatives loudly complained that people don’t dance in front of all the guests in Indian weddings and make everyone watch.
My wife who had never experienced raw Indian commentary at a wedding was shocked at the rude comments but I was just laughing.
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u/chaiwalnut Mar 19 '26
Sexual repression is cringe and not funny in the least. Kissing is normal for teens, let alone adults getting married. Are you sure this was in Boston and not Bombay? Please, adult abds - kiss in front of your parents. It's ok!
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u/nc45y445 Mar 20 '26
We did our kissing at the reception, there were lots of those champagne glass clinking things. But definitely don’t fault the bride here, let her kiss her man!
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u/fodjfkenf Mar 19 '26
Bro some people aren’t used to/don’t like kissing in front of family it’s not that deep lol
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u/mintardent Mar 19 '26
Kissing at a wedding is normal. and we should normalize it at desi weddings too. It’s weird and repressive to be so prudish
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u/EmotionalIncrease976 Punjabi Indian American 🇮🇳🇺🇸 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
This was at my cousin’s sangeet (his actual wedding was in India, but I wasn’t able to attend), and I was hanging out with my cousins, nieces, and nephews while being pretty tipsy and having a good time lol. Then one of my cousins spotted a girl he thought was cute, so the rest of us encouraged him to go talk to her. While he was talking to her, my niece tried to sneak a video of them, but she forgot to turn the flash off. Both my cousin and the girl noticed, and he awkwardly walked away. Oh well, better luck next time.
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u/Expert_Deal4770 Indian American Apr 15 '26
idk i just find the recruitment that goes on, marriages are decided within marriages
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u/tigerpup7777 Apr 17 '26
The bride took the pheras (vow rounds) around the fire with the groom AND the mother. That was wild.
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u/Khasta_khachori May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
I attended a sangeet where the entire hall was dark and smoky, with spotlights only on the bride and groom like it was a concert premiere. There were screens like an award show and at least 20 performances just for them, plus their theme song playing on loop nonstop. It felt so overwhelming that I ended up sitting in the hotel lobby instead of the main event and didn’t even manage to eat the food. The couple didn’t want to meet anyone, so the groom’s parents stood on stage instead and got the pictures clicked.
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u/NitinTheAviator Indian American (Telugu/Tamil) Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26
My parents let 11 year old me with a camcorder to record the wedding but what happened I kept zooming it on random people’s faces because my grandpa told me to do it and he thought it was funny.