Photo Gallery: Indian Weddings

Photograph by Steve McCurry

Sejal (seated, wearing a purple top) finished most of her shopping weeks before the wedding but pops over to Udaipur's main shopping bazaar to fill some last-minute needs. Here she shops for costume jewelry and glass bangles. "Throughout the wedding week she will have something like 15 outfit changes," says McLane. "And every new costume requires a stack of five or six inches of matching bangles on each arm."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

Family and friends of the groom practice their moves for the sangeet, a big, professionally staged show. The bride's family hired a choreographer to work with both families to hone their dance routines to an almost-Bollywood level. "The pulse of Indian film music rang throughout the homes as the dancers practiced from morning till night," says McLane. "Most of the dances were comic little skits depicting the various dramas of Indian marriage—goodbyes to friends, the worries of the parents."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

A few days before the wedding day is the mehendi, a ritual in which the bride, groom, and other members of the wedding party get their hands and arms painted in rococo patterns with henna paste. "The henna takes forever to dry and will smear if you don't hold still for at least an hour," says McLane. "So the bride's house became a comic obstacle course of immobilized ladies, some holding their arms out to air, others fishing ringing cell phones out of pocketbooks for their still-wet relatives."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

Many Indian weddings include a sangeet, the big dance show that takes place the night before the wedding. Here, the bride, Sejal, performs before a crowd of 650 on the eve of her wedding day. This sangeet includes more than 20 dances performed by various members of her family and the groom's family. "Everybody has a spot in the show," says McLane. "The longest and most beautiful dance routine is Sejal's."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

To reach the wedding ceremony, the groom rides a colorfully costumed horse near the head of a boisterous procession called a baraat. "The baraats are led by wailing brass bands dressed in red or blue military jackets," says McLane. "Right behind, the groom—in a brocaded jacket and pink turban—sways atop a plodding white horse. Assistants carry electric chandeliers to light the way, while drummers and giddy, gyrating friends and relatives bring up the rear."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

Their hands joined by a long strip of pink cloth, the bride and groom sit before a fire opposite the pundit (not visible in the picture), who leads the wedding ceremony. "The symbolism of the cloth has to do with breaking ties to the parents and making new ones to the husband," says McLane. Sejal's parents, at the direction of the pundit, ladle ghee onto the fire, again and again. Then comes the climax, the phere, in which Sejal walks around the flame three times, reciting "I was under Mommy and Daddy's protection all this time." Finally, she walks behind Gaurav, who recites, "Now you are under my protection." When she sits down again, she belongs to her husband.

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

Now literally tied to the groom (at right), the bride is comforted by her father over the shock of leaving her family home to begin a new life with her husband's family. "This was part of the vidai, the ritual goodbye of the girl to her parents," says McLane. "Sejal suddenly embraced her mother and began to sob so hard that I imagined I felt the ground shaking. It was so personal an ache, yet so universal. I wanted to look away but could not."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

During the wedding reception at Udaipur's Hazari Baugh gardens, the bride and groom are photographed by one of the countless photographers and videographers at the event. "Indian weddings are complex affairs," says McLane, "with numerous events and religious rituals taking place throughout the week. Through the kindness of both families, I was a guest at all of them, from the opening prayers, or puja, held in the bride's family home, to the afternoon religious ceremony and the closing reception banquet, where hundreds of guests were greeted and fed."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.

Photograph by Steve McCurry

A child snoozes at one of the many events that, over the course of ten days or more, make up a traditional Hindu, or, in this case, Jain, wedding. McLane was invited into the bride's family home to observe their preparations for the wedding events. "For a culture junkie like me," she says, "this was like winning the lottery. I had a ticket out of the touristy Rajasthan and into the real-life one behind closed doors."

Read more in "My Big Fat Indian Wedding" in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic Traveler.