A tourist resort in India decided to stage a mock wedding to entice tourists to visit. The hour long ceremony was capped with a fireworks display. The bride and groom were dressed in very fancy wedding outfits including gold headdresses. It was a really big wedding. Especially when you consider the fact that the bride and groom are elephants.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (AFP) – Two captive elephants were dressed up as bride and groom for a mock-wedding ceremony to amuse guests at a beach resort in southern India, hotel staff said.
The "wedding" took place Sunday evening — billed as an auspicious night for Hindu marriages — at a resort in the coastal town of Kovalam, a popular tourist destination in Kerala state.
"It was altogether a different experience. I will remember it forever," said British guest Claire Abel from Liverpool on Monday.
But one activist questioned whether the captive elephants were being treated properly.
"Greedy owners exploit the captive elephants for making money and they don't feed them properly," said Renjith Devarajan of the Elephant Lovers Club.
The groom was a 12-year-old elephant called Raju, while his bride, two years younger, was called Rani.
Both wore embellished gold head-dresses for the hour-long ceremony, which was accompanied by temple music and followed by fireworks.
The organizers consider the event a big success because it drew around 180 foreign tourists. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard suggest that they simply are not thinking big enough. If they really want to gather a really large audience, they should stage a big divorce. The place will be overrun with hordes of lawyers almost instantly.
