One of my best friends is getting married soon. Her family is Indian and they will have a traditional Indian wedding party.
Now for the party there is no specific dress code in general, she just said we should wear something that we can dance in, because it will be expected that everyone takes part in traditional wedding dances. We can wear a saree if we want, but don't have to (I won't, since I don't have one). The only thing she was very specific about was that wedding dances will be done with bare feet.
Additionally, at the wedding my friend will perform a dance together with her closest female friends, which includes me. So she said we will meet a few times to practice it before the wedding. For that dance we will also have bare feet and our feet will get painted beforehand (an Indian/Pakistani technique called mehndi).
Generally I feel really uncomfortable when I am seen barefoot, so this puts me in a difficult situation. Now I wondered if this is a normal tradition at Indian weddings. Has anyone seen this before? And is there anything I can do about it?
I am an Indian I know it might be difficult for you to dance like that but the belief behind it us that when you have footwear wrapped around your feet, they are not free, there is a restriction on the free movement of your feet. Bare feet touching the ground gives more friction to dance even better. And if u are not comfortable barefoot then you can ask ur friend about that. But TBH barefoot enhances the performance and beauty.
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So you would say there is nothing strange about her insisting that it must be bare feet? My friend knows that I don't like to have bare feet as we went to school together and it became an issue in our drama group as well haha. In fact I think she specifically mentioned it to me because she knew it would be difficult for me, so she thought I should know it in advance.
Actually it would be no problem for me to remove my shoes if I could keep on my socks. The issue for me is that I feel like I have to cover my feet, as I don't want anyone to see them bare. Do you think by "barefoot" she meant taking off my socks as well or maybe I can wear socks?
Socks might make it even worse than shoes while dancing. They seem more slippery than shoes. But if you and your friend seem comfortable with that then you can go for it. by the way why do feel like covering ur feet all the time? Indian community doesn't care if they look bad.
Haha my feet don't look bad. But somehow I feel very exposed when I have bare feet. I don't know if my friend would be ok with me wearing socks. It just seems clear to me that she won't accept it if I would be wearing shoes, since she explicitly said I will have to be "barefoot". But so you think that barefoot also means to take off the socks? Probably you are right, since socks would be slippery and also because she mentioned that we will have our feet painted in order to have them all look the same for our dance performance. And it is very important for her to create a traditional Indian look when we dance. So I guess socks will simply not be an option, right? Or is it common in India to perform those dances with socks, too?
She also mentioned some of the dances that all guests will have to participate in. They are called "garba" and "raas" and she also said that everyone will have to be barefoot for them.
Yes I understand that socks are more slippery and you have better traction with bare feet. It's just that I am so ashamed to show my feet. But since my friend said that we will get our feet painted before the performance, probably there is no was to avoid taking off my socks, right?
Oh ok. So is it common to wear socks during the raas and garba dances? Or are they removed normally? The thing is, my friend wants the dances to look "traditional" as well because of her family. So if it is very unusual to wear socks, maybe she will insist that everyone takes them off
yeah right, my problem is that I don't know any Indian dancer haha. So talking to someone who is from India and knows how their traditions work is already helping :)
what do you mean by practicing it once? Like trying to do it barefoot at home? That's no problem if noone is seeing me haha Or do you mean I have to be barefoot at the wedding, too?
Mmh, it's not just for a few minutes, I think. I believe the wedding dance later with all the guests will take quite long, at least that's how it sounded when she talked about it. And I'm not sure if I can wear socks between the two dances. Our performance is at the beginning of the party and the dance with everyone participating later in the evening. And as I said, we will have our feet and hands painted before the dance. I don't know that painting technique, but is it possible to wear socks in between or would they ruin the paintings on our feet? Because I guess since the painting takes quite long, she will want it to be seen at the long wedding dance with all the guests as well. Do you know if with mehndi paintings you can wear socks or if it will ruin them?
Get your feet painted before the wedding starts that's Mehandi and it takes days and sometimes even weeks to get off so don't worry about it being faint, it won't.
Ok, that's good to know haha But for the dances you think I will have no choice but to take off my shoes and socks? Do you think it would be considered rude if I would refuse to take off my socks when dancing at her wedding and therefore stand out during the dance as the only girl wearing socks instead of bare feet?
Mmh I see. Of course I don't want to make a bad impression on her family, so I guess I will have no choice but to take off my socks... :(
Oh, and something else. In the beginning you also mentioned that having bare feet will enhance the beauty of our dance. What exactly did you mean by that?
haha ok. So if I will have bare feet, it will also just look nicer? But this means that probably a lot of people will look at our feet, especially since they are painted so nicely, right? And since many guys will like to see the girls barefoot, I fear my bare feet will get a lot of attention, right?
Yeah... :( This makes it even worse for me, when I know people will be looking at my feet. Do you think maybe I could decline having my feet painted, in order not to attract extra attention? Or is the painting of feet also part of the tradition that I should respect?
Maybe is it possible just to have my hands painted and not my feet? Or is it also part of Indian tradition to have the girls' feet painted and exposed for everyone to see?
No, but drawing attention to my bare feet is a bad thing for me...
I asked my friend again about the whole bare feet thing and she now answered: "yes, everyone will have to take off both your shoes and socks for our dance performance. Sorry, no exceptions :-P. It is part of our tradition and it will also be easier to dance with bare feet. Also, you will have beautiful mehndi paintings on your hands and feet, so you must also take off your socks to give our guests a chance to see them :-). I promise you will look cute and pretty with your painted bare feet and the guys will also like it. Look, I know that you don't like to show your feet, but in this case please accept that there will be no way to avoid it. You are my friend and I want you in our dance performance. I would be kind of sad if you missed it. And anyway, the wedding dances later will also be done with bare feet and all guests are expected to take part, so then your feet will be seen anyway :-). "
Only for the wedding dances later in the evening everyone will be barefoot. And it will be only me and a few other girls including the bride who will have their feet painted, so I guess we will get more attention.
Now she wrote something else: " about your question if you can wear socks during the evening. Actually no, unfortunately you can't :-D. The thing is, you agreed before that you and the other girls would be helping us out by serving drinks during the evening. In our tradition the girls who do that at the wedding are normally in their bare feet, too. Your hands and feet will look very beautiful due to the mehndi painting and it will take the whole morning to apply it, so we want our guests to be able to see your feet as much as possible. So basically you will have bare feet for the whole celebration. Sorry :-D :-D. But I promise it will still be a great evening and you will forget about your feet soon enough :-P"
Does it seem strange to you that she insists that we must have bare feet for the whole celebration? She said it's part of their tradition. Do you think this is true? And is it also part of tradition usually to have mehndi painted feet exposed all the time so everyone can see them?
By your discussion with the previous answer I can see foot fetish from satellite. Really, don ' t you have better things to do than seeking free hot line services / realistic fetish stories and disguising them as genuine questions?
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