Rowan

It is time.

I study my reflection in the mirror. I hardly recognize myself, decorated as I am. My red turban looks like a crown, adorned with a golden pin to hold it together. My kurta, the long, almost dress-like shirt of ceremony, is a golden yellow, accented with stitched red detailing around the collar and in a straight line down my chest, ending over my abdominal muscles. The light gold pijamo leggings are silky soft. I wear more jewelry today than I have worn on all of my other days of life combined. A necklace from my grandmother, linear cuffs of gold on my ears, bracelets, even an anklet. I wear my engagement ring from Luis. He told me he has a plan for how to turn the rings from engagement rings to wedding rings, but he has left this a surprise to me.

Luis. My love. He orchestrated so much of this, worked exhaustively with my mother and grandparents to make sure he was following tradition and adding his own touches to this ceremony without appropriating a culture that is not his.

It was hard to engineer this ceremony. So many of the rituals of a Hindu wedding ceremony are distinguished by whether the bride or groom performs them. What are two grooms to do? But we navigated through it. Some things we chose to avoid. I opted to wear primarily yellow instead of the bridal red. I wanted henna detailing badly, but I was worried I would look foolish to my more devout relatives. So Luis asked if we could both have the henna applied. Instead of letting me single myself out with a feminine tradition, Luis bears its significance beside me.

I had my left hand done. He had his right. I look down at the ink on my skin and think of the matching pattern on my love's right hand. I gently press my lips to it, wondering if he can feel the kiss across the temple.

"You look amazing," my mother says, leaning over my shoulder. Dressed in a lilac sari, she looks at home in this busy dressing room. All around me, my party gets its final touches together. My grandfather plants a kiss on my grandmother's forehead. The two are dressed in matching green formalwear. Gold gleams everywhere, though no one wears as much of it as I do.

My grandfather steps outside, then returns a few minutes later with a grin. "He's ready. Let's go."

The arrival of the groom and the groom's guests is supposed to be a parade. This was another adjustment of ours. Luis did not feel he was versed enough in the tradition to lead his own parade, nor could either of us figure out how we were supposed to manage organizing two of those celebrations. So Luis and his family wait for us in the temple.

It's a give and take, even now. I wear splashes of bridal red, but I get the groom's arrival. A careful balance to honor the fact that we are both men.

This dressing room has an entrance that leads out into the bright spring day. We will walk down the sidewalk around the block, singing and literally parading, and enter through the temple's proper entrance. This parade, called a baraat, is more familiar to me than many of the other facets of today. I have been a part of two different baraats, both for cousins.

In Hindu weddings, it is literally the more the merrier. I think my list of friends and loved ones caps out at about two dozen, but we have two hundred people in attendance today.

"Ready?" my mother asks, pausing at the door.

I smile. "I'm ready."

My uncle begins playing a lively folk tune on a violin. I push open the door and grin as the sunlight falls on my face. The people on the sidewalk, just passerbys going about their Sunday, laugh and cheer as I lead my family and friends out in our baraat.

A drumbeat thrums in my bones. I turn to see Kiley, looking beautiful in a long green dress, now adorned with a green-and-blue sash, smiles and continues to beat the drum hanging from a strap around her neck. She keeps expert time with my uncle, who laughs and dances around her. She grins at the old man and they seem to speak through the languages of their instruments, holding a deeper conversation than humans could ever manage with words.

My father reaches to hold my hand. My mother attaches herself to my shoulder. I feel Joanna's hands on my back, happily pushing me forward. The people on the street shout well-wishes and take pictures of us. We shout to the heavens and sing what we remember of the song my uncle and Kiley play together. I'm spun around and shoved joyfully, dancing toward the temple's entrance.

The doors open for us. Maria and Jose hold open the doors. Both of them wear beautiful traditional Indian outfits of gray and silver. Maria protested the silver at first, saying it was too close to white for a mother of the groom to wear. She agreed when my mother told her that red is the bridal color, and that white is only avoided because it is worn at funerals, so silver is fine.

Maria and Jose look fantastic. They, like their son, were nervous about appropriation, but were soothed when I assured them that wearing traditional clothes to a traditional ceremony is not only expected, but a sign of respect.

I wave and shout happily to them as we pass them and head inside. The antechamber of the temple is decorated in yellow, red, and blue. Flowers of all of those colors pile over the walls and in the corner. Beads and fabrics pour from every bouquet. Incense fills my head with nostalgic memories of other occasions I have spent here. We move joyfully, nearly running, down the hallway, to the hall where I will become Luis's husband.

A long golden carpet stretches from the door to the Mandap, or altar. My baraat dissolves into their seats, greeted by hundreds of smiling faces and waving hands. I am left standing, stunned, staring at him.

It feels like my heart has stopped. Someone as beautiful as Luis should not exist. He defies the laws of nature. He is too gorgeous to be human as he stands before me, down the golden carpet, waiting for me at the Mandap. He wears a brilliant sapphire kurta interwoven with an intricate pattern of silver. He wears no turban, so I can see the intricate platinum cuffs along his ears, and the platinum necklaces over his chest. His feet are bare, his pijamos silver. His longish hair, falling past his chin now, is the perfect mixture of carefully sculpted and artfully distressed. His hands link together in front of him. One hand covered in the henna detailing, the other bearing the ring that matches mine.

I can't breathe. My muscles seize up. Water streams from the corners of my eyes. I'm caught by all three of my parents, who laugh and gently nudge me forward. I walk toward him, wanting to see his beauty up close. I barely remember to take my shoes off before I step onto the Mandap.

Luis reaches to hold my hands. I'm stunned to see his eyes are overflowing, too.

"You look beautiful," he whispers, running a thumb over the red detailing on my wrist. "Rowan..."

"Luis," I whisper, then I laugh. I laugh because he is beautiful, because I love him, because I am excited, and because I have completely forgotten what the next step is.

Beside me, my mother reaches for my hand. I feel her hand me something soft. Only when I see Maria hand Luis the same thing do I remember this next step in the ceremony. The varmala.

Luis raises the garland, a long and beautifully intricate ribbon of flowers and beads in shades of cream and red, and places it over my head. I duck my head to accept it, feeling its comforting weight against my chest. The bottom of it nearly falls to my knees. I raise my own and place it on him.

Now we sit before the priest. Traditionally, it is the bride's parents who do this next step, but we edited this, too. Behind us, our fathers remove their shoes and step onto the Mandap. My father takes my right hand and guides it in front of me. Jose takes Luis's right hand and guides it atop mine. Then my father and Jose let their hands hover above mine and Luis's.

Tradition says it is the bride's mother who pours the sacred water over her husband's hand and onto the hands of her daughter and future son-in-law. But there is no bride, and I have two moms. So Maria, Joanna, and my mother each hold a small vial of the water. Joanna was uncertain about her role in this part of the ceremony. My mother, father, and grandparents joyfully harassed her into accepting that she belonged here.

The three streams of water pour first over my father's hand, then onto Jose's, then onto mine and Luis's. I cling to his fingers as the water falls over our skin.

The ceremonials pass in an excited rush. The fire in the center of the Mandap is lit. We feed it with rice, then circle around it, reciting blessings and prayers. Then we are to exchange rings.

Maria hands her son a small package before this part begins. Luis smiles and holds up the package. He pulls two slim, almost dainty rings from each.

"Moonstone," he whispers to me. I see that this new ring is clearly meant to be worn atop the one I already wear. It is the exact same material and seems to fit seamlessly against my engagement ring. It would almost look like a slimmer twin of the ring he gave me two years ago, if not for the three small, circular stones set into it. I study them closely. They are a bluish-gray, glimmering with iridescence when the light hits them just right.

He hands the other ring to me. "Sunstone," he whispers.

I'm tearing up again. Luis is my moon, so I wear moonstone. He calls me his sun, so he wears sunstone. We will carry a piece of each other wherever we go.

I slip the ring onto his finger. The sunstone is a yellowy gold. The same color as my kurta. My favorite color.

I'm so helplessly in love that I don't realize the ceremony is over until the music and cheering starts.

I grab Luis and hold him tightly. In the eyes of my gods, and in the law, we are married. We have other festivities planned for today, but this is enough for me. This is enough for him, too.