Our Poruwa Ceremony was conducted by Mr. Panibaratha. Unlike most Ashteka's this man was so laidback and did not care about little things except the big stuff!! He was so cool.. he made us relax so much just by the way he spoke, and we were plenty anxious at this point!! We can honestly say this is probably most unique to Sri Lankan weddings. Almost all the other things have been modernized by other western cultures to the point where weddings are highly commercerlized in Sri Lanka nowadays!

(Click on the pic's to get an enlarged view)

For those of you who dont know, the "poruwa" is similar to the "gazebo" concept in the U.S. However, there's a good "nakath" time for the bride and the groom to get on the poruwa, and a time to get down from the poruwa.

Sri Lankans also consider the wedding day an important day for the bride and especially the brides mother. We use this time to thank and pay respect to our parents for bringing us up to this point. The groom's family gives the bride's mom the "kirikade"( a white cloth) which symbolizes the milk she gave to bring up the bride, the love she gave and all other sacrifices she made to bring up a daughter. It means something much deeper but its kinda hard to translate this to English! Later on we give the betal leaves to all of the relatives who are older who give their blessings and well wishes.

The groom's mom gives the bride a necklace which is tied by the groom on the wedding day. Pandu's mom gave me a beautiful gold choker with a pendant attached. My parents gave me the matching earings! Yipeee!! Pandu's family also gave me a beautiful red saree which I wore for the "homecoming" when I officially go to the groom's house with my family.

We're considered officially married when the bride's father ties both of our index fingers with string and water ("pirith pan" or water thats been blessed) poured on our fingers as a symbol of getting married. Then we exchange our wedding rings!!