Saturday, May 26, 2012

A tihai of weddings

Readers of this blog who don't follow me on Facebook or Twitter might be wondering about the increasing presence of a certain Yuki Taniguchi in my life. Well wonder no more - we got married this year! We didn't get married just once, though. We had three ceremonies in three countries, a veritable tihai of weddings.

Jan 6: Gold Coast, Australia

My lovely bride

Taro and my student Sanjey welcomed everyone with beautiful bansuri and tabla

Waiting for my bride to arrive

Our friends played mbira for the wedding procession

Tashi Lhunpo Monks blessed our union

What a beautiful place for a wedding

You may kiss the bride :-)

Happy times with Spankinhide

Blissfully in love

My best men: Tenzin, Taro and Elliott

We had a great party during which Yuki and I performed kirtan "Sita-Ram".

Feb 27: Varanasi, India

We had a Bengali Hindu style ceremony, which includes funny hats.

Yuki's Dhrupad guru, Pt Ritwik Sanyal, took the role of the bride's father, a great honour for us.

Exchanging malas

Binding lives together

Offering to the sacred fire

Applying sindur for the first time

It was a powerful and magical ceremony

May 13: Kamakura, Japan

We went to Egara-Tenjin Shrine by jinriksha, wearing traditional hakama and shiromuki

Arrival at Egara-Tenjin Shrine with Mama, Uncle Bob, Auntie Zydre and Kamakura jinriksha legend Aoki-san

The Shinto ceremony was absolutely sublime. My favourite part was this dance by the priestess, warding off evil spirits with a ceremonial short sword.

Triply wed. Thanks to TC for this beautiful photo.

Yuki wore a beautiful wig which didn't get seen until the end.

We had the reception at an Indian restaurant.
Thanks to my student Bhavik's mother Neelam for Yuki's beautiful sari.

We performed "Sita-Ram" once more

Thanks so much to all our friends and family for all your support. And praise to all the gods and goddesses for giving us so many blessings.

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