Process of Arranged Marriage

This post may sound a little bit odd, especially coming from me. I have been a firm believer of Love Marriage from as long as I can remember, somehow I always thought that I will go for love marriage, and so did almost everyone who knew me...
But then as luck would have it, and also the probablity of falling in love with a girl who would meet all my specifications as well as my parents was so minute, I am standing at a stage in life totally decided on going through all the nuances of an Arranged Marriage.
Now having seen the process for Didi, I had the idea how complicated and long the process of Arranged Marriage was. But now that the whole process is for me, I have further realised how emotionally exherting it can get sometimes.
Lets go through the basic process once, I am sure its quite similar with other Indians too.

1. Looking for prospective brides - Basic criteria: Good family, Education, Beautiful, Height & the most important Caste !!
2. Initial discussions between the parents by exchange of bio datas, photographs and for future plans.
3. Horoscope Matching - now I have been asked by so many of my friends about this, that do I actually believe in this. Well for me it is like I dont disbelieve it and I believe in it to a certain extent. Plus my parents totally believe in it, so I rather go with it. But the only disadvantage of it is that it narrows down the selection even further, so it is like if there are 10 leads, after the horoscope matching is done, we are left with just 1 or so lead...
4. So after all this formalities are done with, the next step is the actual meeting. Now this can get really funny sometimes, I have seen Girl's parents asking my Mom, what clothes do we prefer the girl to be dressed in when we go to see her ?? Gets really funny, and makes me really want to tell the parents that we are not coming for Shopping, but to get to know the girl. Of all the girls I have seen, they have always been at the girl's house. So we go to the girl's place all dressed up. Here after the usual water / tea / coffee / snacks, I actually get to talk to the girl alone. So then its anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours of a good conversation before I get back home. The initial conversation are generally about hobbies, education, future goals / plans & almost anything under the sun...
5. After coming back home, its a long discussion with my parents analysing the girl, her nature, her family and everything. And till date I have never gone further than that...

Now generally going by the traditional Arrange Marriage rules / customs, I am supposed to meet a girl, talk to her for some time and then immediately come with a decision - Yes / No. I totally dont believe that I can take a decison regarding the rest of my life so soon, and has been a pre condition with mom and dad all along that I would like to meet a girl few times, talk to her many times and then I will take my decision. In a way I feel this time and the interactions will give me an opportunity to actually get to know a girl better and also let me actually fall in love with her, and also make her fall in love with me before we both can decide to get engaged and then married !!
Sounds too complicated I know, but then good things in life are never easy and there are no shortkuts in life too. So enough for this blog, and till the time I get someone !!