Feynman-style Hindu wedding program

Guest post by Kiersten

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.

feynmanlectureslayout alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

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…

program draft 1 alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)
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.)

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Comments on Feynman-style Hindu wedding program

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

    • I like the idea of a card at reception, perhaps making it part of the centerpiece or favors.

      Keep us updated please! 🙂

  3. 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

  4. This is adorable! And so easy to comprehend. Can you send me the final draft as well? And could you send it in a word document so that I can personalize it for my brother’s wedding?

  5. This is wonderful! I’m getting getting married in April 2015 and as the Hindu half of the couple, I’m trying to put together a program for our guests. I would love if you could email me an editable copy of it! Thank you!

  6. This is awesome…if my wedding to an indian man wasn’t coming up so soon (less than 2 weeks) I would use parts of it, as we are integrating some of the traditions into our ceremony so that it represents both of us! The program you made is really well done…particularly how informative it is 🙂 Glad you shared it!

    Best,

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