The Wedding Crashing Experience

Wedding crashing is a common entry in the bucket list of most youngsters. We, at SHOUT, too have been wishing to crash a wedding for as long as I can remember, but nobody ever really got around to doing it. I have recently crashed a wedding, thanks to something that my mother always warned me of -- peer pressure. Allow me to give you some tips on wedding crashing from my own experience.

Decide and fix a particular day, get a gift, however cheap, and wrap it. It was a sudden decision for us, so it wasn't possible to get gifts. My friend called me up and announced that we would be hitting the community centre in the vicinity to crash whoever's wedding was going on. Dressing up in haste, and after convincing my mother that I was going to attend a legit invitation, I left.
If you really want to crash a wedding, switch off your conscience and logic for a while. On the way to the hall, my brain weighed out all that could go wrong. Am I doing the wrong thing? What if we can't get in? What if we get caught? What if, what if, WHAT IF? And yes, I almost chickened out, but just this once, I drew courage from the overused phrase #YOLO, and carried on.
Have a back-up plan, shall you get caught. Ours was that we'd say we confused this community centre for a different one in the neighbourhood, as we've come from the other side of town. Not the brightest idea, but we figured it would get us out of trouble momentarily.  
It's a good idea to have a car drop you off directly at the entrance; that way, you look more like a legit invitee. I guess luck was on our side, for just when we got out of the car, we saw that the groom had arrived, and he was stuck at the gate for the traditional “gate-dhora” part of the ceremony. This meant that the focus would be on the groom now, which allowed us an easy entrance using a side door. Otherwise, I suggest you go a little late, after the groom has entered, as the gates usually are unguarded then.
Be cool and act normal. Drop the gift at the allocated booth and roam around with confidence, trying to remain unseen in the crowd, and yet feigning normality by taking pictures and saying random sentences like, “let the others arrive, and then we'll go eat” every now and then. One of us even went to greet the father of the bride so that things look less suspicious.

When you assume your positions at a table for dinner, engage in conversation with your accomplices, to avoid others, as we did. We constantly feared, however, that the legit guests at the table would figure out that we were crashing. But all the fear took flight when the kacchi was served, alongside the other essential wedding foods. We devoured plates of kacchi, and glasses of borhani, and the waiter even brought us extra firni in hopes of tips. So befriend the waiter for some extra “khatir”, but don't draw excessive attention to yourselves. Thankfully, that didn't happen to us. We tipped the waiter rather generously (we had to give something back, right?).
Finally before leaving, take a photo or two with the newly-weds, just for the Facebook bragging rights. We went to take a photograph too, but the queue was too long and we were too full after the meal to even wait, so we didn't.
To be very honest, I did feel like a hedom during and after the crashing. The excitement was at its peak, and the experience itself was worth the hype. In fact, my friends and I have already started making plans for the next one. However, the fact that we remained essentially unseen throughout the evening sent me into a dissecting thought chain of my importance in the world; but when you've just performed the most mischievous act in your entire life, it doesn't matter. Long live traditional weddings!