The thing nobody warns you about is not the ceremony. It is the three months afterwards, when a festival turns up roughly every fortnight and each one has a thing you are supposed to bring, wear or say, and everybody assumes you already know because you have been here a year now.
And when you ask, you get told not to worry about it. Which is kind, and useless, because the whole reason you asked is that you have noticed everybody else is doing something specific.
So this is the specific version. Written for the person marrying in, or married in, who wants to get it right rather than be reassured.
The one rule that fixes half of it
Ask which family, and which region. Not what do Indians do.
Almost every confident piece of advice about Indian custom online is one region's practice sold as national. Never wear white is a north Indian rule, and in Kerala the bridal saree is cream with a gold border, in Bengal it is red and white, and a Parsi bride wears white outright. Never give four of something is not Indian at all, it is Chinese, and it has leaked into etiquette listicles.
Your in-laws are one household in one community in one region. What they do is what is correct for you, and asking is not a failure. It is the only reliable method.
Money
Cash is not impersonal here. That is the single biggest adjustment for anyone from a Western gifting culture, where money says I could not be bothered to think. In India money is the useful, expected, generous thing, and a wrapped present in its place reads as if you did not know the form.
The total ends in a one. Small amounts carry it themselves: ₹101, ₹251, ₹501. Bigger ones do not, and this is the part that trips people up. You give ₹1,100 or ₹2,100 or ₹5,100, and the one-rupee coin already stuck to the front of the envelope makes the total ₹1,101. Buy the envelope with the coin on it and the arithmetic happens for you.
Even totals are condolence money. ₹500 flat, ₹1,000 flat, are what you take to a house in mourning, and in that case you also leave the coin off. Not because even is unlucky, but because even reads as complete, and completeness is right for a death and wrong for everything else.
If you take one thing from this page: at a wedding, add the rupee. At a funeral, take it off.
Festival by festival
Diwali
The big one. Mithai or dry fruit to anyone whose house you enter, and cash to children and to anyone who works for the household. Kaju katli is the safe box and a respectable one is ₹500 to ₹1,600.
Wear colour. Anything jewel-toned, and this is the festival where dressing up is unambiguously welcome.
Holi
Bring colours if you are hosting or arriving somewhere colours are happening. Wear white, and this is the one occasion where white is not only fine but the point, because it shows the colour.
Wear clothes you will never wear again. People will tell you the colour washes out. It does not, entirely.
Raksha Bandhan
If you are a man who has married in, you will acquire sisters, and they will tie a thread on your wrist. You give money back. That is the whole transaction and it goes one way: sister ties, brother pays.
₹501 or ₹1,100 depending on age and closeness. If you are a woman marrying in, your husband's sisters may tie one on him and you are a bystander, which is normal.
Eid
Eidi, and specifically crisp new notes, to every child in the house. Get them from a bank a few days early, because everybody wants new notes at the same time and the branch runs out.
Ganesh Chaturthi
Modak if you can get them. If there is a pandal collection, that is a donation and not shagun, so a flat ₹1,000 is correct and you should take the receipt.
Onam
Do not bring an envelope. Onam gifting runs on cloth, the Onakkodi, and it goes from elders to younger, given on Thiruvonam morning. An envelope is a north Indian instinct and it will land oddly in a Malayali house.
A new house, a new baby, a new car, a new job
All of these get shagun, and this is the part that surprises people most. It is not only the big life events. A new car gets a nimbu-mirchi on the bumper and money from whoever comes to see it.
Griha pravesh takes plants, kitchen things, or something for the house. A new baby takes money to the baby, which the mother will take, which is correct.
What to wear
You will be told, enthusiastically, to wear Indian clothes. Worth knowing that almost every page saying so sells or rents Indian clothes, and I could not find a single dissenting voice online, which is not the same as there being none.
The defensible version, and the one people who have actually been through it give: you were invited. Dressing for the occasion is participation. And it is never required, so a bright Western outfit in a festive cut is entirely correct and nobody will think anything of it.
The colours to avoid at a wedding are red, which is the bride's, and white and black in north Indian Hindu contexts. Jewel tones are the no-fail default. And ask about white, because in Kerala, Bengal and Parsi weddings that rule does not hold.
Haldi, which has a real rule
Wear something you are willing to destroy. Turmeric stains permanently and it goes much further than you expect.
Yellow, orange or green, because they hide it. Cotton, because turmeric comes out of cotton better than anything else. Nothing embellished, because you cannot clean it. Flat shoes, because it is outdoors. A yellow kurta with jeans is completely fine for a casual one, which is the most reassuring specific thing I can tell a nervous man.
Honest gap: the entire dress-advice industry writes for women. For a non-Indian man at a wedding, sangeet or home puja there is almost nothing published, and what there is comes from shops. Ask your husband or wife what their father is wearing and do that.
Things you may have read that are wrong
- Fruit reads as a hospital visit. It does not. Fruit is a completely normal gift for an ordinary social visit and the hesitation is imported.
- Never give sets of four. Not an Indian belief. Where Indian sources are wary of numbers they name eight and seventeen, both ruled by Saturn. Thirteen is auspicious here.
- Never wear white. North Indian Hindu, not universal. See Kerala, Bengal, the Parsis.
- Always be punctual. Arriving fifteen to thirty minutes after the stated time is normal for a home invitation. Turning up exactly on time can catch a host mid-shower.
Two that do hold, and are worth more than the folklore: shoes come off at the door, and ask before bringing alcohol, because a lot of households are dry and two states are.
The thing nobody will say to you
You will get things wrong, in front of people, and somebody will find it funny. That is not the same as being unwelcome and it is worth learning to tell them apart early, because a family that teases you is a family that has stopped treating you as a guest.
The one that actually causes offence is not a wrong colour or a wrong number. It is not showing up. Everything else gets absorbed.
Questions people ask
›Is it cultural appropriation for me to wear a saree or a sherwani?
Every published source says no, you were invited, please do. It is worth knowing that nearly all of them sell Indian clothes, so weigh it yourself. It is also never required: a bright Western outfit in a festive cut is completely correct and raises no eyebrows.
›Why is everyone giving money instead of presents?
Because cash is not impersonal in India the way it is in the West. It is useful, it is expected, and it spares a couple their fourth toaster. A present instead of an envelope reads as though you did not know the form. A present alongside a smaller envelope reads warmly.
›How much do I give my husband's cousin at her wedding?
As an in-law rather than a guest you are giving on the family's side, so ask what the household is giving and match it. Turning up with a colleague-sized envelope when your in-laws have given ten times that is the awkward outcome, and it is entirely avoidable by asking.
›Do I have to fast?
No. Nobody keeping a fast expects a person who married in to keep it, and plenty of people born into it do not either. If you want to, say so beforehand rather than announcing it on the day, because someone will want to feed you.
›What do I bring the first time I visit their house?
A box of mithai or dry fruit, given with both hands or the right hand. It will probably not be opened in front of you, which is normal and not a snub. Take your shoes off at the door.
›I have been told not to worry about it. Should I worry about it?
No, but ask anyway. Not worrying is good advice about the consequences and bad advice about the method. The people telling you not to worry learned all of this by osmosis over thirty years and genuinely cannot remember being taught it.