Designer lehenga? Check✔️
Pre-wedding photoshoot? Check✔️
Bridal makeup artist and a stylist? Check✔️
Destination wedding? Check✔️
Indian weddings nowadays are all about glitz and glamour, pomp and show. We have brides deciding between Manish Malhotra and Sabyasachi, grooms making a grand entrance to the venue, the caterer serving a 500-course meal across 50 cuisines, and wedding venues that can hold 2000 odd people. On top of that, there’s a good chunk of people who want a destination wedding. If it’s in India. then Udaipur. If abroad, then Italy!
However, weddings back in the day were very simple. If you ever happen to go through your parents’ wedding album, you would know that most weddings in the past used to take place in one’s home. People who had houses that couldn’t hold many people would book community centres or local wedding halls. Brides were mostly dressed up by female members of the family and their looks were both simple and traditional.
It was a much simpler time and many people online have been sharing pictures of their mothers as brides to vouch for it. Many of these women wore little jewellery and different coloured sarees, not just red. Have a look:
My mother as a bride in 1987. There was little jewellery except the nath which is compulsory for married women in my family.
Most women in my family until the late two thousands got married looking like this until the Bollywood fad of red, blue and other such loud colours. pic.twitter.com/rT861fNeDR
— Shivangi 🏳️🌈 (@sheevaangii) September 26, 2023
My mom at her wedding, 1991, maroon shari we both still wear, dad in panjabi passed around between weddings of Communist Party of India(Marxist) members. Special Marriage Act, sindoor added by relatives after much drama, no other rituals, no one way to be an Indian bride indeed. pic.twitter.com/xynnYHFDkr
— Pratiti (@PratitiTiyas) September 26, 2023
My mother as a bride in 1987. https://t.co/L3uJB2zvRY pic.twitter.com/tOIC6cURAK
— Kutta The Dawg 🇵🇸 (@6lackfield) September 26, 2023
Don't have the wedding photo at hand but this is my mom's purple wedding saree which she wore around my wedding too! Purple (not red) from the South 🙂 https://t.co/kUYkNbszmA pic.twitter.com/P98yqEITYc
— Preethi Krishnan (@krishnan_pree) September 27, 2023
my mother at her gaye holud in 1983, sitting on an ashon, surrounded by garlanded banana trees and a lokkhi alpona https://t.co/0QczMAbuO4 pic.twitter.com/1sH7y1oBdG
— শাঁখশঙ্খ (@gayofbengal) September 27, 2023
My mother as a bride. It breaks my heart a little everytime I see her pictures and realise our parents had their Eras and how fast time has consumed their youth. https://t.co/zJuuJDXpHx pic.twitter.com/knLt3gKdI7
— H. (@unspokeneuology) September 26, 2023
Reminded of my grandparents (eastern UP/Bihar) explaining that the bride wore no jewellery and a simple yellow piyari – dyed in turmeric & minimally decorated with gota) – to symbolise that the groom &family accepted her for herself not any wealth she may have https://t.co/lcjzcYRO1i
— Sunny Singh (@ProfSunnySingh) September 26, 2023
my mom getting married alone in lahore in 1976 because the mounties were investigating my dad in ontario for cocaine smuggling https://t.co/jvGH2vYybf pic.twitter.com/ZjY1RqxErZ
— فرنگی پٹھان (@mkhanpasha) September 26, 2023
my amaa getting married in 1993 while her best friend does her hair and makeup. my parents got married in their neighborhood park.
weddings were so wholesome+ communal back then and not a whole commercial experience. https://t.co/EEI1mlnHLu pic.twitter.com/gUihxNz2Au— Joti Ghani (@desi_disco) September 27, 2023
mumma is so gorgeous ✨🤲❤️🧿 https://t.co/OqnaSRlYkr pic.twitter.com/Jbv8kNBKrV
— aam enthusiast 🥭 (@himanshi97_) September 26, 2023
Movies, especially mainstream Bollywood cinema have convinced society that one needs to have a ‘big fat Indian wedding’. We really don’t need it. 🙂