Wedding in olden days used to be fun filled ceremonies with a festive mood. It used to be a lovely time wherein family and friends get-together to celebrate the matrimony of their loved one. But all this is slowly changing. Nowadays, people do not have the time to stay for long ceremonies and perform rituals. Most of the people do not even know about the various rituals that are to be performed at a wedding.
Such is the fate of all weddings in India including Bengali weddings. Earlier Bengali marriages used to be a three day long ceremony filled with fun and rituals. They used to take great pride in such cultural events. Well, not anymore.
Today almost all Bengali weddings are different from what they used to be
. Starting right from the process of selecting a bride to the reception party, all has changed. Most parents and boys/girls now search the Bengali matrimonial sites in order to find a prospective Bengali bride or Bengali groom. These Bengali matrimonial sites now perform the role of matchmakers, who in earlier days used to take over the responsibility of getting an ideal match for one's son or daughter. But, the good thing about all these Bengali matrimonial sites is that they are dedicated to getting you the ideal match. They have a list of search options from which you can search for a girl/boy from any caste, religion job education etc. This makes it a lot easier for parents to get their son or daughter an ideal match.
However such change has adversely affected the rich culture that used to be displayed during Bengali weddings. The Bengali weddings that take place now are usually cut short with just a few important ceremonies, unlike the many number of ceremonies that they used to have in a traditional Bengali wedding. Nevertheless, change is good. In today's fast paced life not many people have the time to attend long ceremonies and spend a lot of time during the wedding. Most people prefer to get things done faster and in a more effective way and so they try and avoid all the unnecessary ceremonies that consume too much time as well as money.
When we compare the Bengali weddings that take place today with those of the past, we notice that there is a lot of change in the way things are handled. Some weddings have new ceremonies which have been adapted from other cultures whereas some weddings have fewer ceremonies than the traditional weddings. This is simply due to the lack of time. Relatives and friends hardly have the time to stay back and create the mood of festivity.
Today most of the organizing work is done by event management teams. They usually perform all the wedding tasks like decoration, dressing up bride/groom, catering etc. The traditional Shehnai players have given way to CD players and the traditional saree's have been replaced by designer ones, also most grooms no longer wear Sherwanis but wear pants and suit instead. Like these there have been many more changes to the traditional Bengali wedding, but whatever the case the wedding mood is still present and people have a great time no matter how short the ceremony is or what kind of music is played.
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