I recently attended a Chinese/Punjabi/English wedding.
It was in the hills of Mahableshwar, and the weather was perfect. We stayed at the Mahabaleshwar club - an old Parsi 'asli' club with bearers and pudding and high ceilings. And strict notices 'No chappals or mobile phones allowed in the dining room.'

There was a sangeet, a Chinese tea ceremony and a Hindu ceremony at her house (a little way away from Mahableshwar proper).The fun part of the wedding was that there were sweet, polite Chinese relatives, raucous drunk Punjabi relatives and proper tea drinking and beer guzzling English ones in summery dresses.And while the Punju women drank and smoked and sang naughty songs in husky voices, the Chinese ones, sipped and bowed and shyly whispered into the mike.
The English ones of course, sang off key.
Tara, the Bollywood sister taught us all to dance...and by the end of it, everyone thought they were little Bollywood divas when actually we'd probably just about pass off as extras.

Her dad (the erstwhile playwright, Pratap Sharma) didn't lose a chance to make a speech. About how the marriage was making the world a smaller place…and how the tea in the Chinese tea ceremony had the fragrance of love or something like that and about the history of the music he played and on and on...but really sweet and touching.

On the wedding day, we had to climb into buses and head to the house, through narrow, curvy, hilly lanes. We reached a particularly narrow stretch and the bus driver refused to go any further!
He said his bus would get stuck and wouldn't be able to turn and navigate its way thru the narrow roads.
He did what all good Indian bus drivers do – he went on strike!

So what do we do? There’s a wedding to get to after all…so we get off and start walking...in our chiffon sarees and high heels and delicate brocade outfits. Carefully tip toeing our way down a kachcha rasta, slapping mosquitoes and ooohing at the stunning view.Anyway. We get there, and Pratap Uncle has invited the whole village to the wedding! So there they are, the Maharashtiran villagers in all their finery, with band and horse, attending a Chinese, Punjabi and English wedding! Along with a Bollywood star thrown in.

The villagers take over. The groom, does as is told and gets onto the horse. The drums start. The horse panics. It rears up on its hind legs and throws the groom off. And then loses its balance and falls on top of the groom, kicking and denting a friends car on the way down!So there was the groom, battered and bruised, there was the bride, worried about her husband, and there was my friend, wanting to sell her car then and there!

But I have to say it was one of the most relaxed, and entertaining weddings I've ever been to. Real good solid fun. Namu was so relaxed and carefree as was Andy, that no matter what happened, everyone had a really good time. That’s the way to get married! Or one of the ways I guess.