Indian Sikh Engagement Ceremony
Amarinder and Inderpreet’s Indian Sikh engagement was a full day of ceremonies, food, color and most importantly, friends and family celebrating.
Please enjoy, Scott Shaw Photo | Cleveland Wedding Photographer
Their action packed weekend started Friday night with the proposal
and ended with the Indian engagement ceremony on Saturday. I’m going to let
Amarinder speak about much of the day in her words.
“As far as Friday goes, Inderpreet proposed to me in front of our friends and family.
He gathered everyone at a parking lot on Case Western Reserve University’s campus
where we had our first “hang-out” as friends four years ago, October 2012–this
was during Hurricane Sandy so instead of going someplace to eat, we ended up
sitting in his car for four hours waiting for the weather to calm down haha!
After Friday night’s surprise proposal, we all headed to Corner Alley and had a
nice time bowling and catching up. We ended the night pretty late and only got about
1-2 hours of sleep before Saturday!”
MUA Randeep worked on Amarinder’s hair and makeup.
“The morning/afternoon dress is called a salwar suit and the evening dress is an anarkali.
Both outfits are from Punjab, India–also the birthplace of our parents!
P.S. The anarkali was a lot heavier than it looks!”
“My maternal uncle and younger brother helped Inderpreet tie his turban, which is
referred to as a ‘pagh’ in Punjabi. There isn’t much of a
significance but colors along the red and pink spectrum are considered to
be auspicious for these types of occasions.”
Amarinder watched a video of the proposal again while having her hair done.
“Friendly FYI: The forehead headpiece is called a tikka. And the bracelets/bangles I
was wearing are a set of churiyan. There’s no significance yet, it’s only
jewelry for adornment. However, during wedding time, the bride dons a
special set of red and white churiyan called a choora.”
The ladies thought it would be fun to do a photo of them jumping
around Amarinder before the Indian engagement ceremony.
“The temple ceremony was held at the Bedford Gurudwara. ‘Gurudwara’
is the name for Sikh Temple.”
Amarinder’s family walked to the ceremony with baskets of gifts.
“The baskets that my family walked in with were a gift offering,
or shagun, to Inderpreet’s family. The ceremony began with everyone walking
in and paying their respects to Guru Granth Sahib, our central religious
scripture. After that, the Sukhmani Paath, or prayer for success and peace,
started and lasted for about 2 hours. Upon its conclusion, the shagun
continued and Inderpreet and I were adorned with gifts from both sides of the
family and fed sweets to celebrate the happy occasion.”
“In the picture frame is my father. He passed away in 2009
and we wanted to honor his significance in our lives.”
Amarinder’s maternal aunt and uncle feed Inderpreet sweets.
Inderpreet’s mother feeds Amarinder sweets.
“The Guru Granth Sahib is situated on top of Rumala Sahib and under
Chandoa Sahib (the canopy-like structure). The Sikh priests, or Granthi,
took turns reciting the prayer, singing the prayer, and fanning the Guru
Granth Sahib (also called performing Chaur Seva).”
Sikh Granthi leads the ceremony.
We made the portraits at the Ritchie Ledges in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
The couple cut the cake surrounded by family members and friends.
“Our engagement cake was created by Patisserie 42 in Strongsville and it was
absolutely delicious! We thought it would be a good idea to put April,
May and June birthdays of family members on the second tier of the cake
so that we could commemorate them as well! The third tier was for our
1.5 year old cat, Timon–I thought it would be funny, considering my
love for all things cats.”
Thank you for viewing this Indian Sikh engagement ceremony,
– Scott Shaw Photo | Cleveland Wedding Photographer
