An Indian–Mexican Wedding in Puerto Vallarta

Three days. A garden, a beach, an agave field.

Punjab and Jalisco, twelve hours apart

Raj's family keeps the Punjabi rites — the henna, the jaggo, the turmeric. Jocelyn's family is from here, from the coast. Nobody asked either side to give anything up, and the week was built so both got their full ceremony rather than a polite half of one.

What follows is the running order as it happened.

Day one — Mehndi, then the Jaggo

Henna first, in the afternoon, quiet.

Then the garden went dark and the jaggo — “wake up” — began: relative after relative balancing the gaggar, a brass pot ringed with lit candles, on their head, a dhol under everything, the boliyan answered back in a circle. It runs late on purpose. Nobody in that village is allowed to sleep through a wedding.

Day two — Haldi on the beach

Everyone in yellow. Turmeric and mustard oil pressed onto the couple by their families — maiyan — under a red phulkari four cousins held overhead against the sun. Grandmothers went first, and were the least gentle about it.

It ended in the Pacific, all of them, still yellow.

Day three — the wedding at Finca 18

Vows on the lawn at Finca 18, a working agave distillery out at Las Juntas, under an arch built in fuchsia, marigold and coral. Jocelyn's mehndi was still dark on her hands, under white lace.

Portraits in the agave rows afterwards. Dinner in the open hall, a charro singer with a rope, and a dance floor that never once decided between Punjabi and Mexican.

Three days between India and Mexico, in Puerto Vallarta

I did not know a single person that first morning. Three days later I did not want to leave.

India and Puerto Vallarta are twelve hours apart. Exactly twelve. When it is daylight here it is night there — you cannot be further from each other. And yet everyone was in the same garden, trying to balance a copper pot ringed with candles on their head.

Because that is the jaggo. The gaggar goes from head to head, people sing, the circle answers back, and it goes on. Nobody on Jocelyn's side had ever seen it. They all took a turn — the aunts, the cousins, everyone. They laughed and they went again. The word means “wake up”. You do not sleep through a wedding.

The next day, everyone in yellow. You take a little turmeric paste on your fingers and put it on the couple. Wherever you like. The grandmothers go first and believe me, they are not gentle about it. Jocelyn was surprised every single time. At one point I lowered the camera for a second because I wanted to put some on too — on Raj especially. And I still do not know how, but I ended up with yellow on my nose. I laughed a lot that day.

Then on the third day everything turned around.

The wedding was at Finca 18, a working agave distillery out at Las Juntas. For the portraits we walked into the rows of blue agave. Not the beach. Not the sunset. Not the postcard everyone comes here to get married in front of. Mexico for real.

And this time it was Raj's family discovering. They looked at everything, they asked, they wanted to be part of it. People who had crossed the whole planet, delighted by customs they were seeing for the first time. You have to witness that once.

I photographed those three days forgetting I was working. That is the quiet privilege of this job — you always end up close to people. This time, within a few hours, I felt like I had known them all for years.

If you are planning something like this, the one thing that matters on my side is knowing the running order before it starts. A jaggo keeps no schedule. A haldi is over in twenty minutes. Tell me your dates.

Wedding planner: Magnifique Weddings, Puerto Vallarta · Venue: Finca 18, Las Juntas · Photography & film: Julien Leveau — Arcencielstudio