My Dream Indian Wedding

Wedding season is upon us and I’ve recently been thinking about my own wedding 17 years ago. Do you mind indulging me while I reminisce? Writing this has definitely gotten me dreaming of going back to visit all of these places. Thinking about all of the pieces that went into our ceremony brings me to some fun and happy memories.

So, here’s the backstory on my wedding. In true “Erin” fashion, this was not a typical wedding. We ended up having two ceremonies spaced four months apart and held on two different continents. We knew we wanted to get married in England which is where half of my husband’s family lives but we couldn’t do it legally without residing there for at least a month. The other half of his family was, at that point, mainly in India so we decided to do a condensed Indian/Jain ceremony in Northern California for our legal proceedings (Jainism is the relgion of my husband’s family) My family all reside in the US so it seemed easier for them to travel, although looking back on it, it probably was not as easy as we thought. Oops! Oh well, some of our guests got their first ever passports because of our English wedding and for that, it was worth it!

(PS-This post will focus on the Indian ceremony. A forthcoming post will focus on England.)

(PPS-It’s taken me awhile to find the photos from this wedding and I am missing a lot of them which is a little disconcerting but hopefully the ones I included here will give you an idea.)

Because budget was a big issue for us, we needed to keep this ceremony small, official, but still meaningful and special. And we did it! The location we chose was this little place called Stillwater Cove Ranch.

It is located on the coast of Northern California, pretty much smack dab between Sea Ranch and the town of Jenner, right next to hwy 1 on the ocean. From 1932 - 1963 it was a boys school (for “impossible children” ) and then, from what I can tell became a residence for the family that ran the school. We lucked out with the perfect timing as it was between the boys school years and the private residence years when you could rent out the cabins and property. So we rented all 6 (?) of their cabins and the main hall and had the most condensed version of an Indian/Jain wedding that we could.

This location also had a special memory for me because I remember visiting it with my parents when I was younger. It was a place that was so quintessentially a Gravlin road trip stopping point. Inevitably my dad would find a spot and want to check it out and usually take photographs, so we’d pull over. I remember we were headed up to Mendocino and saw this random little spot and decided to check it out. I believe it may have been privately owned at that point because I vaguely remember having a conversation with a woman who lived there but I’m not certain. I just have a clear memory of what it looked like way back then and that trip with my dad and mom.

Stillwater Cove Ranch

Since this location is so off the beaten path and hasn’t been open to the public since the onset of social media, it’s hard to find pictures of it but the link above gives you an idea. Below is the cove across the 2 lane highway.

This is the cove directly across the highway from the Stillwater Cove Ranch

We had a lot of the traditional aspects of an Indian/Jain wedding just on an extremely small (and extremely inexpensive) scale.

I had a Mehndi ceremony with my friends where I had my wedding Mehndi (henna designs) applied to my hands and feet. We ate, drank, and laughed and were astonished at how great the henna paste smelled!

Then, we gathered the night before the ceremony to celebrate together and so that all the family members could meet each other…essentially a small, altered version of a Sangeet. As luck would have it, members of my husband’s family from India were already planning on being in the US at this time and were able to attend! It was so special to have an uncle and auntie representing even more of my husband’s father’s side of the family at our ceremony (his father passed away before we met each other). His relatives also brought over traditional wedding clothes and jewelry for both of us which added another layer of meaning to our ceremony.

Kishor Uncle and 2 year old Forum

Our mandap was made from a tailgate tent covered in saris (if you check the link which shows mandaps from actual, larger Indian/Jain ceremonies you will see how, shall we say “minimalist” ours was - ha! ). A mandap is sort of like a 4 pillared altar that the wedding ceremony takes place under. (Oh god, looking at the actual pictures, it was a bit of a hot mess but we were on a major budget people!!!)

We rented the fire bowl for the traditional fire that we walked around. All of our pujas and rituals were done underneath our unintentionally, hilariously, Americanized mandap.

My husband’s cousin’s wife is Brahmin caste and married us with her then 2(?) year old daughter sitting next to her repeating all of the pujas. It was so sweet.

The day before the marriage ceremony. I believe this was the blessing of the mandap?

My mother-in-law gave us her traditional, ornate stool/table and box that is used in Indian weddings to hold the traditional items used such as rice, red powder, and deepas (a candle of sorts).

Our food was a giant catering order from an Indian restaurant that we literally just kept warming up over the long weekend (now that I think about it, everyone was probably so sick of it by the end)!

We did almost all of the traditional parts to the actual ceremony and it felt very special. This link tells more about the traditional wedding ceremony that is similar to what we did.

The property even had wild peacocks roaming the grounds which are the national bird of India and symbolize strength, power, and royalty among other things. The sweet part of this story is that our location was a place I remember visiting with both of my parents on a road trip up to Mendocino. I think we pulled off into the property because it looked interesting and it had stuck with me ever since. It was the perfect place for our tiny, legal ceremony.

Super small, weird, quirky, but at a fantastic location; family who just happened to be in the States from for our ceremony; custom Indian wedding clothes; dear friends; memories of my dad; peacocks; and a location right by the ocean. Perfection.