Elephants at Indian weddings?

[Rube E. Tewesday]

How common is it, really? I'm guessing not as much as you'd think from watching TV. Are there elephant rental agencies for just such occasions?

[pulykamell]

How common is it, really? I'm guessing not as much as you'd think from watching TV. Are there elephant rental agencies for just such occasions?

The name of the procession is barat (barat nikasi). I've only seen it with horses in the US and would be curious to hear if the elephant is common on the subcontinent.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

I'm just gonna give this one little bump, to give another of our Indo-dopers a chance to see it.

[RoOsh]

I'm in the US. Been to weddings here and in India.
Only seen it once.
Seen horses almost at all of them though. And in India there was one with Cars like 15+ years ago, and that was special too. Here more likely for Horses. But there was a wedding I missed that had elephants in it apparently (it was a wedding that occurred in the States too, it was covered by the newspapers and everything for that reason). So I guess out of the 12-15 Weddings I've been to... about 2 I've seen had Elephants. Then again, most of the weddings have involved family members of my family. And we're not really that ostentatious especially the people who are living in India. Not exactly the richest of folks out there.
So uh... yeah, YMMV.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

Thanks, guys. Can I follow up a bit? Are Indian weddings basically similar whether they're Hindu/Muslim/Sikh/Jain/and so forth, or does the religion make a large difference?

[RoOsh]

Thanks, guys. Can I follow up a bit? Are Indian weddings basically similar whether they're Hindu/Muslim/Sikh/Jain/and so forth, or does the religion make a large difference?

I want to say Hindu vs. Muslim makes a difference. The language, prayers, and rituals are all different then.

Maybe for Jain, (I would think it likely since again, different RELIGION, so I'm sure they'd say things differently) but I don't know. I've ONLY been to Hindu weddings.

[RoOsh]

Also, the weddings could differ just based on Region, what South indians do may not be what the Punjabi people do vs. what the Kashmiri and the Guju people do. However, in those I've always seen the general gist of the Wedding as the same, with differences in food, presentation, and clothing. But the ceremony is the same for the majority of it. I think.

[Cluricaun]

Well apparently you can rent a wedding elephant from these people. "Elephant rental wedding" has 206k hits on Google.

I don't know about that though, they'd probably eat all the canapés.