Things have changed quite a bit at urban Indian weddings. It is not that weddings are no longer serious matters. Its a new, more open mindset, the attitude of acceptance and a willingness to experiment, that has made the traditional less formal, more light-hearted, imbued with a spirit of fun that is easily, exuberantly expressed.
So it is now as much part of the modern lifestyle to be married on a beach, in a plane, at midnight or, indeed, not at all!

And part of that change is evident in the wedding feast. While the old ways are still revered and often part of the meal whichever one it may be more people are choosing an esoteric blend of culinary styles to reflect their own way of thought. Today, in fact, it could be considered exotic to serve up a very traditional meal, because so many of the components are no longer a part of everyday eating.

The marriage is not just between bride and groom, but between East and West, North and South- of India and beyond and of cooking methods, ingredients and presentation. And the meals that result, a divine fusion...or sometimes, infrequently, a mess.

There is often a theme to a wedding and the main meal follows that path. In India, western concepts are often adopted to show off a certain international consciousness. So a couple may be married on the beach, Hawaiian style. Guests would then sit down to a huge feast including everything from the starchy poi to whole pig roasted in an underground oven, with fish, shellfish, root vegetables and fruit.

As an alternative, the mood may be Italian; the meal would consist of a sunny selection of vegetables cooked in olive oil, meats delicately seasoned with fresh herbs like tarragon, oregano and basil, pastas redolent with cheese and spicy tomato sauce and cold tiramisu or gelato to finish the meal.

The Japanese dinner would be a tale told of delicately flavoured broths, beautifully wrapped sushi, exquisite arrangements of teriyaki and liberal lacings of sake.

If the flavour were Arabia, couscous - jewelled with dried fruit, nuts, saffron and mutton or chicken - with a variety of meat and vegetable accompaniments would be set on the table.

There is a special taste to the Indian wedding feast of today. It is rarely all about food typical of one region of this vast country. Caterers these days - be they family retainers, traditional bawarchis or a more modern company in the business - need to satisfy all sorts of palates, and have evolved a unique way of doing so. They create fusion meals, which take common favourites from all over the country and serve them together in a way that makes the mouth water and the mind wander to places known and unknown.

But here, too, there is generally a theme of sorts. A Punjabi family would probably prefer to stick with the food of home, and serve up melting kebabs, butter-laced saag, multi-grain rotis, meats tender from the tandoor, fresh cold buttermilk and sweet milk-based desserts.

A Kerala wedding could concentrate on avial, poriyal, meen curries, moilys, mutton cooked in coconut extracts, rices of various kinds and puddings ranging from payasam to naiyyappam. In Mangalore, seafood takes precedence; in Gujarat, chaste vegetarian food is the norm, especially in the Jain community; and in Kashmir, the wazwan makes a meal fit for kings, not just mere mortals.

Fusion cuisine, Indian wedding style, is a special phenomenon. The most common, perhaps, is the Punjabi-Chinese, a culinary approach tasted all over the country. It spices up the basic flavours of Chinese cuisine often believed to be permutations of soy sauce, ginger and garlicpastes in vinegar, chillies and sugar, all enhanced by the presence of liberal sprinklings of monosodium glutamate.

So dishes such as Vegetable Manchurian small fried cabbage, carrot, onion and flour dumplings floating in a thick, garlicky sauce, Sweet and Sour Chicken butter fried chicken, green peppers, carrots, beans and onions in a sweet tomato-ketchup-based gravy, Fried Rice long grained rice sautéed in oil, dotted with small pieces of vegetables and/or meat and Hakka Noodles flat ribbon pasta stir fried with the same sort of mixture are favourites on marriage menus.

The others frequent on the wedding table are dosas small and large or stuffed and plain, breads Indian or western style, and salads. The last are, indeed, interesting to eat through. They may be the standard local layout of roundels of onion, tomato, beetroot and horseradish (mooli), or less conventional toss-ups of sprouts of various seeds, cucumber, cracked wheat and coriander leaves, in a form that could be Arab in its origin. Lemon wedges are ubiquitous, keeping company with chillies, chutneys, sauces, raitas and papads.

And then, of course, there is dessert. Cake and ice-cream are as often seen as are jalebis, gulab jamuns and barfis, with the more exotic of sweets including trifles, custards, fruit creams and mousses.

So where does the culinary experimentation stop? When weddings no longer have feasts and guests no longer need to be fed. And that would be near impossible a state to achieve!