#palakpaneil

This past weekend was the wedding of my friend Palak to her fiance Neil. They have quite the cross-country story. They met while he was living in New York, she in DC, while she's from San Francisco, and he's from Pittsburgh, and now they live in Chicago. So it was a big production getting everyone to her wedding.

I left on Thursday in order to make it there for the mehndi celebration. (It was also Palak's birthday that day!) We went out to celebrate afterwards at the super classy Buffalo Wild Wings establishment, and stayed up practicing the dance routines (well, some of us fell asleep).

In the morning, Ankita made pancakes and then we went to Palak's for the pooja ceremony, and from there, Neil's entourage arrived with the chaat presented to Palak. It was just so neat to witness all of it. We checked into the hotel that night and the girls still had lots of preparation.

Saturday morning for the wedding was an EARLY day (hair started at 5:30a) and we had to have the aunties drape the saris, so I got draped around 7:30a and then didn't have much to do until the lunch at 11a. After lunch was the baraat, which is the groom's procession in. He rode in on a ferrari with DJ Tanveer spinning and everyone dancing and going crazy and with the groomsmen getting on shoulders.

They meet up with the bride's family and do some ceremonial rituals and then everyone (grooms side and brides side) all walk to the ceremony altar together.

The ceremony was long and it was hot. They passed out paper plates for people to fan themselves with, but it was beautiful and really neat to watch.

After that was a short break (we practiced dances and ordered pizza and set up some table stuff downstairs) and then the reception... with an open bar!

After speeches and toasts, lots of combinations of the wedding parties went up to dance for the bride and groom, which was awesome, and after the floor was open, it was packed to the brim the ENTIRE time, all generations. It was really fun. Sri had just seen the Taylor Swift concert in SF the night before and was on a Taylor Swift high and kept wanting to request her songs but wanted to make me do it and I refused haha.

At the end, the groomsmen passed out hats and we all thought they were just Golden State Warriors hats, which was weird... then we realized they said "Palak & Neil 08.15.15" on them, so that was pretty sweet. When the place had to close down at midnight, we took our party into the hotel lobby bar, until that closed at 2. It was long, but super fun, and given that neither side had really met the other, everyone was so fun. I had to get up at 7 to check out and get to the Bart station to make it to Oakland. My flight to Ontario was delayed but a flight to Orange County was leaving then and I was able to just jump on that, which worked out perfectly since AJ picked me up and then came to my grandmas and got to meet Dorothea in the flesh and my favorite aunts haha!

It was beautiful being able to be at Palak's wedding, and I remembered her from college, and from our times in NYC and her apartment in Maryland together, and all of us long talks and relaxing trips and just thinking about her getting here, it was just sweet and I was happy to be there for it, and so happy for Palak.