Saturday August 14th arrived and Surbhi and Ganesh came to the The Mayflower Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel, just down Connecticut Avenue from the White House. Built in 1925, the Mayflower Hotel, is an architectural and social landmark in Washington, favored by many U.S. Presidents including Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman who lived there for the first 90 days of his presidential term.
Surbhi got her hair done in Virginia before heading to the hotel to get ready. Ganesh lucked out and got to move into the Presidential suite to get ready with his groomsmen.
As Surbhi continued getting ready, Ganesh and his family began the Barath or grand arrival ceremony. A pedicab had been lavishly decorated for the occasion taking the place of a more pedestrian white horse or elephant. Ganesh processed around the block preceded by durmmers and many dancers until arriving at the hotel entrance and being greeted by Surbhi’s family and the pundits or priests.
After the Barath ceremony, the main set of formal wedding ceremonies began with both sets of parents and the groom participating to start, and then the Surbhi arrived for the final set of ceremonies.
At the end of the night a Surbhi and Ganesh headed for their suite, a couple of Ganesh’s aunties tipped me off that their suite had been decorated for the wedding couple and I managed to get some photos of the bed before they entered the room.
Below is a mini-slide show with these and some more highlights from Ganesh and Surbhi’s Wedding Ceremony and Reception Pictures, check it out. Click on “Pictures” at top right to hide the thumbnails; to start just click on the right arrow on the image.[smooth=id:30]
Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, specializes in photojournalism and portrait photography for publications and corporations and is a wedding photographer in Seattle who travels internationally to photograph weddings.
