by Sonali Chulki

Created on: April 20, 2008

Traditionally in India, Hindu couples renew their wedding vows on the Silver or Golden anniversary of their wedding, celebrating their years of togetherness. These ceremonies are usually organized by the children in honor of their parents, as a token for their love towards the parents and as a gesture of thanks.

Children typically invite all their parents' friends, cousins and their families, and together all of them take blessings from the couple. It is considered to be fortunate to have lived so long together, the younger generation couples then touch the couple's feet and seek blessings to replicate the good fortune for themselves!

Vow renewal ceremonies either take place in a temple or at the couple's home. Mostly a priest is invited to chant certain shlokas & mantras (hymns), thanking God for supporting the couple through their journey together. Offerings are made to the family God in the form of donation to temples or alms for the poor.

Hindu dharma (religion) believes in monogamy, hence it is considered as the fulfillment of the wedding vows taken during the actual wedding years ago.

During the actual ceremony, the couple is seated on a stage filled with pillars and a decorated canopy, adorned with flowers typically red roses, which represent long lasting love of the couple. The couple is dressed traditionally, with the groom wearing a white and golden dhoti, and the woman wearing a red and gold sari, which is considered as auspicious colors by all Hindus. The guests are also dressed in silks and other finery, treating the renewal ceremony as second marriage' of the same couple.

Lavish gifts are given by the couple to their children and the other guests and relatives. Those who can afford it, also distribute silver coins with imprints of Hindu gods and goddesses, commemorating this occasion.

The renewal of wedding vows represents a celebration of the couples facing years of up's and down's, domestic difficulties and perils braved together. The oaths that the couple took decades ago, of being together through thick and thin, through sickness and health, through ease and hardship and finding solutions to the problems of lives in consensus, have now fructified. It symbolizes a successful journey together.

To the believers, it also signifies a transition from the Grihasthashram (married life and career) to Vanaprasthashram (detachment from the material world).

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