From Gotham to the mandap: A Desi bride and groom bring the Batmobile to Philly
A replica of the 1989 Batmobile briefly bottlenecked Market Street early Saturday morning, social media posts showed.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh wait, it’s a ... Batmobile?
A replica of the 1989 Batmobile briefly bottlenecked Market Street early Saturday morning, social media posts showed.
The Tim Burton-era ride came out of the Batcave for what appeared to be a South Asian wedding near Loews Philadelphia. The newlyweds, guests, and gawking passersby were spotted taking pictures with the armored roadster.
“I’ve seen elephants, camels and even Mummers in Indian wedding processions in Philly, but this is a first,” blogger @phillychitchat wrote on Instagram. That post had nearly 5,600 likes as of about 2:20 p.m.
It wasn’t immediately known who the couple was or why they included Batman’s iconic car in their nuptials. The replica car rental company, DeloreanRental.com, could not be reached Saturday afternoon for comment.
The Batmobile may have been a superhero-inspired take on a traditional wedding procession, according to Sucheta Sachdev, cofounder of Kareena’s Closet, a marketplace for renting and buying pre-loved South Asian formalwear.
In a North Indian baraat, a groom rides to the wedding venue on a lavishly adorned horse. But another groom went viral last year for similarly arriving at his wedding on the top of the “Tumbler,” the 2005 iteration of Bruce Wayne’s Batmobile. Is it too early to call this a knot-tying trend?
Indian weddings are notoriously lavish and involved, often taking place across days and requiring multiple intricate outfits, Sachdev said. She described the festivities as “organized chaos.”
“The idea of weddings in South Asian culture is really not about individuality,” Sachdev said. “It’s about families and families coming together.”
But perhaps the Batmobile was a way to infuse the bride and groom’s wants or interests into the celebration, she posited. For example, at her own wedding more than a decade ago, Sachdev and her husband rode away in a then-novel Tesla; at her cousin’s wedding in Salt Lake City, the couple took off in a hot air balloon.
Regardless, as @phillychitchat said, “Never a dull moment in Center City.”
Quick! To the Batmobile!
