Feynman-style Hindu wedding program
Invitation Porn
Guestpost by
on June 03, 2010
6
Kiersten decided that instead of explaining their upcoming Hindu wedding ceremony to everyone who would be attending, that she would just make a very detailed program to explain the goings on, and she drew inspiration from an extremely unlikely source.
We decided we definitely needed a very detailed program to explain what is going on during our Hindu wedding ceremony. But there are little traditions and customs of weddings that aren't really part of the ceremony (like the whole "something blue" thing). I've been thinking about how to include those in the program without detracting from the "serious" stuff. Our guests would probably like to play the little games and get in on the fun bits of the ceremony, we just have to tell them what they are.
Our problem was already solved… in the Richard Feynman Lectures on Physics.
The serious ceremony stuff can go in the fat column, and fun little notes & pictures can go in the skinny column next to the related ceremony bits. And the Feynman layout worked really well…
Click here to see the rest of the wedding program.
It looks nice and will be really good at conveying information — even the format is communicative of the "serious important ceremony" + "fun little embellishments and traditions" idea. (It's in LaTeX — if anyone wants to steal the layout one day, I can help.)
About Kiersten
Kiersten got her PhD in May of this year from a school in the midwest, and just moved to Boston. Her fiance is Indian and she's American so they're wedding will combine the things they like from each tradition and fill in the gaps with their own stuff. Oh yeah and she's a feminist who practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So don't mess with her!
Samantha said
This is fantastic and what really surprised me, personally, was how much of the Hindu traditions outlined reflect what my partner and I believe and want for our ceremony. It's very inspiring! I love offbeatbride for giving us all the opportunity to experience other cultures and customs in such a celebratory way.
Stephanie said
This is AMAZING! I shot a Hindu wedding last year, and while their program was good, it was NOTHING like this.
Jessica_Iowa said
That is a great idea!
galaxie said
We did change one little bit of the ceremony from the original: kanya praktikaran ("presentation/introduction of the bride") is traditionally kanya daan ("giving-away of the bride"). We might change it to something else still — my understanding of Sanskrit isn't very good so there are some questions of translation. Varakanya samashraya ("man and woman entering a covenant") is the frontrunner now, because apparently "praktikaran" has an implication of divine manifestation that's not very applicable for human subjects.
For everything else, there are many different ways to interpret the Sanskrit text of the ceremony, and we attempted to choose the most simple, faithful and progressive ones. It involved a lot of googling for other couples' ceremony programs.
There are some other ceremonies and traditional games that are supposed to occur after we've arrived at our new home (or the groom's family home) — but we're planning to do them at the reception. I'm not sure whether to include those in the program or write up a different little card for each table so the guests know what's going on.
Samantha said
I like the idea of a card at reception, perhaps making it part of the centerpiece or favors.
Keep us updated please!
Madhu said
Galaxie,
I absolutely love this! We are having a lot of people at our wedding that are not familiar with Indian customs. This would be such a helpful layout. Your work has really inspired more weddings than you might have thought!
Would you mind sending us the final copy you ended up using? It would be very helpful!
Thank you!
Madhu