The Unwritten Rules of Attending an Indian Wedding

Nobody hands you a rulebook with the invitation, and yet everybody seems to know the rules. Here is what the card does not spell out.

Read the invite properly

Read all of it, including the inserts. An Indian wedding is rarely one event; it is a week of them, and the invitation usually tells you exactly which ones you are being asked to. Turning up to a function you were not invited to is awkward for everyone, and missing one you were expected at is worse.

Check the venue for each function separately. They are frequently in different parts of the city, and the mehendi is almost never where the pheras are.

Your invitation is for the names on it

If the card says two names, it means two people. Catering, seating, and favours are counted weeks in advance, and every uninvited guest is a plate taken from someone who was counted.

If you genuinely need to bring someone, ask. Ask early, ask the couple or their family directly, and accept the answer gracefully. Do not ask on the day.

Dress to the brief

If the invitation names a colour palette or a dress code, it exists for a reason, usually a photograph the family has been imagining for months. Follow it.

Where there is no brief, the safe rule is to dress up rather than down, and to stay clear of white and black for the ceremony itself unless the family has said otherwise. Avoid anything close to the bridal red unless you have been told the palette calls for it.

Let the photographers work

You are not the second photographer. Standing in the aisle with a phone during the entrance, or leaning into the varmala for a better angle, puts you directly into frames the couple has paid for and will keep forever.

Watch the professionals and stay behind them. They have planned their positions. If you want the shot, you will get a better version of it from the official gallery in three weeks.

Be present

Eat the food while it is hot. Learn the two steps everyone is doing. Talk to the great-aunt sitting alone at table nine. Put the phone down for the pheras.

The couple will not remember whether you posted. They will remember whether you were there.