Mauritius Wedding

Dave and Sheetala's 3rd wedding was in Mauritius at the beginning of August, and I have finally gotten round to putting up a small sample of the pictures from the wedding... I can't really write exhaustive explanations about them, so will put short notes and if you want to know more / see more pictures, then ask me.

Here is one of Sheetala's grannies with a rather large number of chillies... she always laughed at me whenever she saw me and we had no language in common - we got on really well.

All the ladies had traditional henna tattoos done for the ceremonies...

... and they all scrubbed up alright.

While the men did more important things...

This spider was really quite large.

And here now is the wedding stage ...

...and the seating - all under a huge tent erected in Sheetala'sparents garden.

Here is the first purification ceremony...                

... and the second...

.... and here is the saffron ceremony, where turmeric paste is smeared over first the bride, by all the male members of her family, and then all the female members, and then the same for the groom. This is to purify them.

Now we get to the wedding ceremony itself - and they scrub up quite nice.

And now here they are having tied "the knot".

Next day was the family ceremony...

...before Dave and Sheetala were escorted by us to their honeymoon destination 5star hotel.

That night we caught a lizard and he could lick his own eyes... imagine!