Blending traditions: the colors and customs of Indiabring internationa flair to a Southern country wedding.

For one spring day at College Hill Presbyterian Church outside Oxford, a red organza tent replaced the age-old wooden pulpit, and silken saris stood in for stockings and lace.

It was one of the most unique celebrations in the church's 170-year history, as Neha Arvind Vyas and Ashok Elisha Philip exchanged vows before an eclectic crowd of church elders, college students, fellow Indians, and international friends.

It was a community affair, in the truest sense.

As many as half of the hundred or so guests present that day had been involved in helping to plan and carry out the event. The result was a vibrant fusion of Indian vivacity and Southern warmth, as rich and rewarding as finely blended tea.

"It was the exotic and the sacred mixed together," said Crystal MacKenzie, whose husband assisted College Hill's pastor, Rev. Alan Cochet, in performing the wedding ceremony. "Bill and I both remarked at how wonderful it was that a little country church in Mississippi would embrace the cultural differences and enjoy it so much."

As a little girl back home in Bombay, Neha Vyas used to dream of her wedding day. Instead of pearls and white satin, she imagined jingling gold bracelets and beaded silk. Her groom would ride up on a decorated horse, and a thousand friends and relatives would gather for many days of raucous celebrations and solemn Hindu rituals.

But by her 28th birthday, Vyas had adopted a new faith, moved to America, and gotten engaged outside her culture's arranged-marriage tradition. Her childhood dreams had become a maze of uncertainty.

"I didn't know how Christians got married," Vyas said. "But I knew I couldn't get married in the way I was used to."

Still, she was eager to include those Indian traditions that weren't directed to Hindu gods. It was also important to reflect the separate culture of her fiance, whose Christian family traditions and south-India language were foreign to her.

The couple moved further into uncharted territory when they decided to have their wedding in Oxford, where both were pursuing doctoral degrees in medicinal chemistry at the University of Mississippi. The distance from home would be a challenge--but also an opportunity.

"It really gave us the freedom to conceive of the whole wedding structure in just the way we wanted it," Philip said. "We really had the luxury of having a wedding on our own terms."

Despite many differences, India shares several values with the American South.

"Traditions are held onto in the South, and there's a certain amount of pride in those traditions," Vyas said. "It is also a close-knit society, and both share a reluctance to change."

Tradition is rich at the historic College Hill church, where many families have been members for generations. But history wasn't its main attraction for the couple.

"It was really the people of that church and how much love they have showered us with," Vyas said. "They just adopted us as their own."

Friends from the church, campus, and Oxford's large Indian community played their own roles in the celebration. The couple organized friends into various committees, and everyone went to work.

College-age friends volunteered to make the bride's and groom's cakes--a purely American element. The groom's best friend, Matthew Clark of Louisville, gathered fellow musicians and arranged hymn-book melodies for the Indian dulcimer. Church member Suzanne Johnson offered to stitch the bride's veil, and the pastor's wife, Anne Cochet, had the unofficial role of greasing any friction among the various groups.

"People were as involved and as committed to the whole thing as they would have been had it been our uncles and aunts and parents," Vyas said. "That made it stressful in a sense, because everybody had their own ideas. But I think that is also what made it beautiful."

Two parties thrown for the bride during the week before the wedding were a practice in cultural exchange. One was a proper bridal brunch organized by the women of the church, where hot tea and delicate treats were served from silver and crystal. The other was a paper-plate evening of dinner, dancing, and singing, arranged in chaotic Indian fashion outside the MacKenzies' home. Vyas' Indian girlfriends brought sparkling dandiya sticks to clink together in a traditional dance from Gujarat, her home state.

As night fell, the bride's aunt, Pushpa Vyas of London, led another wedding-week tradition: applying mehendi, a paste of henna leaves, in a decorative pattern to her niece's feet. It was a touching moment for the only member of the bride's family able to attend the wedding.

Americans and others took their turns, too, wearing the brownish-red stain on their hands and feet until the wedding day. The Indians were impressed by the group's willingness to take part in such foreign traditions.

"When you're far away from home, getting to have those things--even if it's not as elaborate--it means a lot," said Srujana Bruhaspathy, a native of the groom's home state of Andhra Pradesh.

For the wedding itself, French artist Frederique Cheve, a friend of the couple, envisioned the decorations as a riot of red, orange, and gold.

"It had to be kind of noisy and very alive not that kind of classical, proper wedding," she said. "It was actually the opposite image I had in mind."

The centerpiece of the concept was the couple's description of the traditional tent, or mandap, where Indian weddings are held. Internet research refined the idea, and the tent took shape as a 9-foot-tall wooden frame draped with sparkling red organza and strung with hand-tied garlands of yellow mums.

In decorating the fellowship hall, Cheve employed the French attention to detail to harness India's vibrant colors and patterns.

Fabric brought by a friend from Bombay was cut and sewn into table runners for the seated reception dinner. Cheve customized plain candles and printed menus with strips of red and yellow paper, gold string, and tiny gold beads. Floating candles and flowers added to the effect.

Wedding-day guests of all nationalities joined in to dress the part. Indian women lent saris to friends from other countries, and the ushers donned colorful scarves over their suits.

"They all looked so stunning, poised, and elegant," the bride's aunt said. "It appeared as though they were used to wearing traditional Indian outfits on a day-to-day basis."

At the reception, a small army of volunteers served the guests a dinner of chicken curry and biryani rice, which friends had shuttled down from a Memphis restaurant that afternoon. The meal was finished with cups of hot chai, a creamy Indian tea.

Long after the celebration had ended, the couple would remember how the experience set the tone for their marriage.

"It's a daily challenge to blend everything together," Vyas said, "to pick the things that are most meaningful to us and to discard the things that don't really matter."

Recipes for a few of the unique menu items served at Neha and Ashok's reception begin on this page and continue on page 150.

CHAI

1 1/4 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons loose Assam or Darjeeling tea
  leaves or 2 tea bags
1 pod cardamom, freshly crushed
1/4 teaspoon chai masala powder (optional)
2 1/4 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup whole milk

Bring water to a boil. Add tea leaves,
then simmer for 2-3 minutes or until water
is dark brown. Add cardamom, chai
masala, and sugar, and boil for 1 more
minute. Add milk, then bring to a boil
again. Remove from heat, cover, and let
stand for 1 minute. Strain with a tea strainer.
Pour into teacups, and serve piping hot
with scones or biscuits. Yield: 2 servings.

RAITA

1 cup yogurt
1 tablespoon water
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tomato, ripe but still firm, finely chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and grated
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, roasted and ground

Beat yogurt, then add water. Add onion, tomato, and cucumber.
Mix in salt. Sprinkle ground cumin seeds on top. Yield:
about 4 servings.

Note: For a thicker dish, omit water and/or add a little
more yogurt. Instead of cumin seeds, you may sprinkle with
pre-ground cumin.

CHICKEN BIRYANI

1 1/2 pieces (1 tablespoon) ginger, coarsely crushed
6 to 7 cloves garlic, coarsely crushed
3 to 4 pods cardamom
1 to 1 1/2 pounds chicken, cut into small pieces
Sprinkle red chili powder
1 teaspoon garam masala powder
Sprinkle turmeric powder
Salt to taste
5 tablespoons cooking oil
2 to 3 bay leaves
3 whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
2 to 3 star anise (or 1/4 teaspoon anise seeds)
2 green chili (jalapeno) peppers, seeded and chopped
1 onion, sliced
2 tablespoons yogurt
1 1/2 cups Basmati rice
2 1/2 cups water

Mix crushed ginger and garlic to form a paste.

Crush cardamom pods, and extract seeds, discarding pods.
Reserve seeds.

Marinate chicken with red chili powder, garam masala
powder, turmeric powder, salt, and half the paste of crushed
ginger and garlic. Set aside.

Heat cooking oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat.
When it is hot, add bay leaves, whole cloves, cardamom,
cinnamon, and star anise. Add green chili peppers and sliced
onion, and saute until onion is transparent. Next, add marinated
chicken pieces, and saute, turning frequently, for about
5 minutes or until browned. Stir in yogurt, and cook for about
2 minutes more.

Add rice and water. Add a pinch of turmeric powder, the
rest of the crushed ginger and garlic paste, and additional
salt to taste. Cook until rice is cooked, about 15-20 minutes,
stirring occasionally.