On the day of the marriage rituals start right in the morning. First you have to purify yourself and then offer prayers to your forefathers. Then (in some cases) you undergo (a condensed version of) the sacred thread ceremony and become a hermit renouncing the world (for about an hour !!!). After that you re-enter the material world and start preparing yourself for the marriage.
The act in preparation of marriage is beautification. This is done in the traditional way by putting a mixture of oil and turmeric on the bodies. In this act, there is a catch. This has to be carried out as a serial process. The bride has to be beautified with the same mixture which was used on the groom. Thus it entails a journey of this mixture from the groom's place to the bride's place (usually accompanied by lots of people and gifts). The gifts are special and constitute the "twatto". This created a bit of a complication for us as there was 300 kms separating the two places. So we had to get there the previous night !!! That concludes all that has to be done in the morning. After this the groom is free to roam about while the bride usually has to sit for the bridal make-up.Then in the evening the actual marriage ceremony is held.
The day after the marriage, after a lot of emotional goodbyes, the bride travels with the groom back to the groom's house and is ceremonially received there. The following day, the groom first assumes responsibility for the bride and then the bride serves food to the whole family (doesn't have to cook ! only serve !!). This is called the "Boubhat". In the evening a social reception is held at the groom's place where the bride is introduced to all of family and friends. The bride's family comes to the groom's place (as usual with gift's - "twatto") for the gathering and the whole ceremony is concluded with the bride and the groom going to sleep on a flower bedecked bed - the "Phulshojya".In our case for logistics reasons, this had to be split up into 5 days instead of the usual three. The first day was the legal registration (13.2.06). Then the Aibudobhat was on the 16th. Marriage on the 18th. On 20th the family ceremony for the Boubhat along with the "Phulshojya" was held. Finally on 22nd was the social reception at the groom's place.