Wedding

---

Anita Prabhu and Aaron Fluellen got married today. Yesterday was the Mehendi meet-and-greet followed by a pizza dinner (and carrot cake)at an Italian restaurant. The Mehendi artist was talented and quite versatile drawing a dragon, a dolphin and other requests by little kids. Good spread of assorted cheeses, fruit(strawberries, blueberries, plums,watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew,pineapple with blueberry and peach yogurt on the side),bruschetta, hummus with pita chips, donuts,coffee and soda. Met Lalitakka and family- Mokki, Yuthika, Prachetas, Tanavi, Rithvik,; Manu, Vaishali; Kavitha and Anita. Anita wore a nice light green sari. It was nice to meet Lalitakka's friends and family members that we had heard of and never seen before. P. J. Nayak and Sunanda were there as also Prabha and Sheshagiri Prabhu. It was so good to see and talk with our friends from Lubbock who had moved to Youngstown, Rekha and Ganesh Kudav. Aaron and family arrived from their hometown ( about an hour away I think), we met some of them at the Mehendi event.

The wedding ceremony today at 10 a.m. was Vedic rites conducted by a woman priest Hershaji from Chicago, at a chapel converted into a Heritage Center/Hall for all kinds of events. The wedding party members including Aaron's parents were all dressed in Indian clothes,the groom and groomsmen entered dancing the Bhangra to Bhangra music, Moki brought in the bride following her bridesmaids to nice western music. Anita and Aaron exchanged vows and rings after the Vedic ceremony. The guests had fruit and coffee while the wedding party did the photographs. The reception was in the basement of the chapel, with Indian and Western buffet, Rasmalai, cookies, fruit, and of course wedding cake. Anita and Aaron changed into white wedding gown and a nice suit for the reception. Favors at the table were jars of homemade mango jam For each person. In addition, all the ladies got a small bag of rose water soap, diya and a bindi pack. There was a candy table with bags for anyone to fill with candy- including Lindor truffles and individually wrapped bonding laddoos! There were small, medium, and large flip flops in a basket for guests to use/ take for 'dancing shoes' in case you had heels on and couldn't dance in them. Music for dancing was both Bollywood and variety of western music. By the way, Tanavi played a beautiful piece on the oboe. She is going to Oberlin College this Fall.

We stayed a while, I danced a little, and then left or rather tried to leave and got caught in the middle of a lecture by the manager of the Chapel-Hall giving a history of the building to a few guests. It didn't last too long and was quite interesting. Underlying theme was how much money they need to keep preserving, restoring and running the place.

Back at the motel, we rested a while, and then picked up Rekha and Ganesh to 'go lobstering' as Lalitakka put it. Ganesh had been dying to eat lobster and we wanted to catch up on news and each others' life events. We drove to Portland and ate at a restaurant on the waterfront. R had a lobster roll again, I had a delicious veggie mango burger, Rekha had crab cakes, and Ganesh enjoyed a twin lobster meal! So I did end up looking at not one but two whole lobsters at the table. We had a good time chatting Till we dropped them back at their hotel.

Anita and Aaron are moving to Chesapeake, VA so they will be closer to NC.

---