Indian Wedding Archetypes

At my uncle's wedding this past weekend, I had a chance to observe Indian wedding archetypes in person.  Most people at a wedding are there for the food, the show and (although they won't admit it) the booze, but a few people are there because it's their destiny, because the wedding wouldn't be complete without them.  These are the Indian wedding archetypes, or, the 6 people you probably won't meet in heaven.

The Over-Friendly Uncle:  Not limited by race or creed, there's an OFU at every wedding.  At an Indian wedding there are usually at least four or five.  Like elephants, OFU's are large, clumsy and difficult to ignore, but powered by the booze and general merriment of a wedding their festive instincts go into overdrive.  OFU's spend the first hour getting tanked at the open bar, then wandering up to various women and making the kind of remarks that would normally get them thrown out of a bar.  Unfortunately, there are no bouncers at weddings, and people can respond to an OFU only by keeping an eye out for one and then immediately getting out of his path.  Once sighted by an OFU, it's almost impossible to escape, because they will pursue, and have a nasty habit of cropping up in the least expected places, like in the hallway outside the ladies room.

   Subclassifications

• The Sketchy Single OFU:  The OFU who never married, and therefore carries an air of melancholy around the dance floor with him.  Prone to telling long stories about (possibly fictional) ex-girlfriends.  The SS-OFU behaves like an aged sailor on shore leave, and often has the same unsteady gait, even when he hasn't been drinking.  He's particularly loathed by his better half, the Awesome Single Uncle.
• The Sketchy Married OFU:  He's married to a long-suffering aunt who ignores his behavior in the hopes it will go away, or because she sincerely believes that he's harmless.  Anyway, she looks forward to weddings as an occasion to ditch him and her in-laws, and he relishes the freedom by over-imbibing and trying to recapture the imaginary lost camaraderie of bachelor-dom.

The Interfering Aunt:  The IA is like a mildly annoying rash that just won't go away.  She is not related to the wedding party in any conceivable or important way, but she still manages to capture a starring role in every wedding-related drama, from ordering flowers to organizing the ceremony to dressing the bride.  Indian weddings have a lot of ceremonies, and therefore there are tons of opportunities for an IA to make herself unwelcome.  The moment the group reaches a consensus, the IA will barge in to express her opinion that everything should be done differently.

Related branch:

• The Over-Friendly Aunt: Not to be outdone by the notorious OFU, the OFA has stored up every inappropriate joke she's ever heard, and spends the entire wedding wandering around looking for people to share these stories with.  She's the older woman who surprises the bride with a gift of honeymoon lingerie, while the hapless bride has no choice but to smile and accept gratefully, like somehow she'd never been to a department store before.  (Actually, in India, this is sometimes the case)  The OFA is usually harmless unless she starts to give advice.  The OFA's advice, meant to reassure, usually only enhances the bride's undefined fears, giving them a new and very public face.

The Drunken Server:  There are at least as many workers at an Indian wedding as there are guests.  Although most staff are hard-working individuals just waiting to make their big break in Bollywood or wherever, a select few are simply there because they happened to pick up the phone that morning.  The DS is indifferent to his job, but not to the perks.  He's usually already trashed by the time the wedding reception begins, and as the night  goes on he gets ever more casual, shedding parts of his uniform and spilling hors d'ouevres on guests.  After a few hours he's the most enthusiastic dancer on the floor, helping hoist the groom in the air while various other friends lead the guests in rounds of bhangra.  It's only around midnight, when he's found sleeping off his high beneath a table, that the other guests realize he isn't actually one of them.

Subclassifications:

• The Surly DS: He refuses to take an order, ever.  He's there to party, and anything else is beneath him.
• The Overeager DS:  He offers advice about everything, from which appetizers to sample to how to open the first dance.  He's like a host at a restaurant, except that a wedding already has a host.

The Moody Sister:  Yeah, okay, it's not technically HER DAY.  She gets it.  But she doesn't understand why everybody is making such a big deal out of a wedding, especially considering that half of all marriages nowadays end in divorce and the other half probably should too.  She just got over a nasty breakup, a bad boss or an existential crisis, and she doesn't understand why even one person can't spare two minutes of sympathy for a hard-up soul.  Halfway through one of her sad harangues, you might be tempted to ask her how she even knows the bride/groom.  Don't be surprised if she answers, "Who?"  Anyway, she just doesn't understand how it happened that she, the better-looking, smarter, more flirtatious one, isn't the one getting married.  The best cure for a Moody Sister is a Handsome Groomsman.  Handsome Groomsmen aren't really all that interested in the wedding either, so they get along well with MS's. And they won't have to spring for drinks.

The Awkward Groomsman:  Ok, Indian weddings don't have groomsmen, but this guy is the Handsome Groomsman's wingman, or at least he thinks he is.  He's socially inept to the point that he can't hold a job, and replies to all conversational sallies with inappropriately intimate remarks about other people.  Because he can't talk for beans, he spends time observing everyone else's behavior in minute detail.  Don't be surprised if he greets you, on first introduction, with a comment like, "Oh, so you're the one whose fly was unbuttoned at the sangeet" or "You really ate a lot of rice at lunch.  I've never seen someone eat so much rice" while fixing you with a beady-eyed, sweat-inducing stare.

The Overworked Aunt/Uncle:  While everyone else at a wedding exists in various stages of sobriety and dress, this is the person who actually arranges everything.  Ten minutes before the wedding, when someone loses a necklace/misplaces a bouquet/seats two exes next to each other, this is the man/woman who chases down the jeweler/bouquet/caterer and fixes the problem.  Unfortunately, the OWA/U  usually knows that he or she is indispensable, and in between angry calls to various people, makes sure that everyone else knows this, too.  "Why doesn't he/she just take a chill pill already?" the groom asks the air. "Because I can't, or nothing will get done," the OWA/U replies.  Uncomfortable silence always follows, because they both have a point.