I never knew if I’d get married, but if I did, I was sure that I wanted to elope. Don’t get me wrong—I love weddings. The dancing, the hoopla, the ceremony (I always cry), the making friends with random people by a fire pit at 1 a.m., the getting to celebrate the people I love most. But all that wouldn’t feel right for me. I’m lucky to have many wonderful and very close friends, but we meet up mostly one-on-one or in small groups. I despise being the center of attention, to the extent that I haven’t even had a birthday party for over a decade.
But then, I fell in love, got engaged some three years later, and, that night, spoke to my husband-to-be about what our wedding day would look like. He, completely justifiably, wanted to mark the moment with our families and friends. The compromise we reached was to find a sweet spot between an elopement that was just us, and a more traditional wedding—a civil ceremony, and then drinks, canapés, and cake with about 35 of our nearest and dearest.
It felt doable in terms of budget and organisation, and I thought my mum would be pleased. In the years that I’d been dating my partner, I knew she worried that we’d just run away and get married one day without telling her. I knew it would mean a lot to her to be there as we exchanged rings and made our commitment to each other. But I also always saw the appeal of a romantic, spur-of-the-moment thing, which didn’t involve anyone else.
When I told my mum, she was thrilled. But I also quickly realised that I was entering a bit of a minefield. And maybe that would be the case for anyone, but it’s especially the case for me because I’m Indian.
I was born in Kolkata, in north-eastern India, but moved to London with my mum aged seven. I’ve been here ever since, and my mum moved back to Kolkata almost a decade ago. I have no family here—I keep in touch with my mum, cousins, and aunts, and see them every year or so, when I travel back to India for weddings and other celebrations.
Indian weddings have changed a lot over the many decades I’ve been attending them. Many are now smaller, more modest, and more personal than the ones I went to as a child. But the word “small” is relative. I’ve been to weddings with about 800 guests. At many, I genuinely had no idea who the bride and groom were, and never saw them. I’d gone with my aunts or grandparents, and it was often their neighbour’s son’s/doctor’s daughter’s/friend’s granddaughter’s wedding. I had a great time, ate well, gossiped, people watched. Now, smaller weddings are made up of about 300 people.
The thing is, there’s a neatness to an elopement. They’re not particularly common in Indian communities, but if you and your partner secretly tie the knot without inviting anyone at all, you can (I think) actually sidestep the awkwardness and politics that usually accompanies wedding guest list planning. Hey, you didn’t tell anyone, so technically no one is slighted, right? But, what’s worse, I swiftly understood, is doing something very, very small. Because then, everyone is slighted.
My partner and I have a lot of friends who we wanted to be at our celebrations, plus about 10 family members who we’re very close to. He doesn’t have a big family, so for them, this decision wasn’t controversial at all. But, on my side, the questions started right away. Could I have a separate wedding reception in India with another few hundred people? That’s not something I wanted to do. Okay, but then how could I not invite all of these relatives? Well, I tried to explain, I wasn’t really close to them. We didn’t really talk. We don’t really have a relationship. And if including them would mean not being able to include friends who I see all the time, who have been by my side for the most important moments of my life, that just wouldn’t feel right. This, predictably, did not go down well.
I am, at heart, a people pleaser, and I have found standing my ground on this very difficult. I understand that weddings, and Indian weddings in particular, are most often not about the bride and groom. They’re about their parents, their parents’ friends, their community, an extravaganza which reflects a family’s status and glory more than the couple’s. At so many of these Indian weddings I went to as a kid, if I did manage to spot the bride and groom, they looked stressed out and haggard, being rushed from religious ceremony to extended photo shoots to greeting queues of well-wishers. I never saw them smiling or laughing or being present with each other.
But couldn’t I have a wedding that I can actually afford? One where I might—whisper it—even enjoy myself? One which reflects what me and my partner’s life is actually like, and what our future together will be like, and includes the people who we hope will remain in it for the long run?
In the end, we’re sticking to our plan, but I can’t escape the feeling that I’m being extremely selfish. I want to make my family happy. I don’t want anyone to feel sad or excluded or unimportant. I don’t want to embarrass my mum, who after years of attending her friends’ children’s weddings won’t be able to invite them to mine. (This is also made worse by the fact that I’m an only child—sorry, mum.)
But as we move into the future, isn’t it important for all of us, especially those of us from Indian and South Asian communities, to think about what we really want versus what’s expected of us? Some people dream about that big, beautiful, blow-out Indian wedding. I get it—I adore attending them. But if that isn’t what you want, shouldn’t that be okay, too?
