A few days ago, I had my first experience attending a traditional Hindu Bhutanese wedding.
My missionary friend Matt and I had received a phone call about it when there was only an hour left in the marriage ceremonies, but we still were able to have a great experience interacting with the family's culture.
Student missionary Simeon Snow enjoys learning about Bhutanese culture at a wedding.
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The wedding is not actually all one ceremony. There are alternating ceremonial times between pronouncements of union and times for the friends and family of the couple to give gifts and blessings to the family.
A Hindu priest officiated, and a lot of the ceremonies involve putting tikas—religiously significant marks—on the foreheads of both the husband and wife. By the time all of their family and friends had placed tikas on their foreheads, the couple look like they are flowers with a 3-inch diameter circle of beautiful red on their foreheads.
The people at the wedding were very pleased to see us. I knew several faces in the crowd from my time in the apartment complex, and Matt seemed to know almost everyone. The family fed us a full meal of rice, meat, pastries and sugar balls. While we ate, we made small talk, and Matt introduced himself to a few of the adults and children whom he did not know.
While most of the crowd spoke Nepali, we were able to have insightful conversation with some of our friends who knew English very well and were able to explain to us different parts of the wedding processions.
All the women wore beautful sakis, and the room was full of colorful ribbons and pictures. The centerpiece of the room, in front of the husband and wife, had an oil lamp with a candle, two plates covered in tika clay (with which the blessings were placed upon their foreheads) and a floral bouquet.
Several children ran around the room having fun—normal for almost all Nepali gatherings, regardless of formality. Two of them were striving for control of Matt's iPhone because they wanted to play a driving game on it.
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Once the ceremonies had concluded, we drove a family back to their apartments near where we live. The two kids who had been fighting over Matt's phone were in the car of us, still negotiating their turns.
It was a wonderful time for us to catch up with several of our Hindu Bhutanese friends in a loving setting. We pray for God's blessings on the new couple and their family. And we pray their community would become connected with the love of Jesus Christ.
Simeon Snow, a recent Houston Baptist University graduate, is serving with Go Now Missions at Segue Refugee Partners Ministry in the Dallas area.
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