The Kanayadaan is that part of the marriage ceremony in which the girl's family gives her away to the groom.
This is a very emotional ceremony for the bride and her parents.

The father pours out a libation of sacred water symbolizing the giving away of the daughter to the bridegroom. The groom recites Vedic hymns to Kama, the God of Love, for pure love and blessings. As a condition for offering his daughter for marriage, the father of the bride requests a promise from the groom for assisting the bride in realizing the three ends: Dharma, Artha, and Kama. The groom makes the promise by repeating three times that he will not fail the bride in realizing Dharma, Artha and Kama.

The father of the bride chants:

"I offer ye my daughter: A maiden virtuous, good natured, very wise, decked with ornaments to the best of my abilities. With all that she shall guard thy Dharma, Wealth and Love"

The bridegroom reassures the bride's father by saying thrice that he shall remain her companion in joy and sorrow, in this life and life after.

In the South Indian weddings, the bride and bridegroom are separated by a curtain placed between them. They are not to see each other until after the marriage ceremony. The priest invokes the blessings of the ancestors belonging to the last seven generations of both families. The bride's parents wash the groom's feet in a gesture that symbolizes their belief that he is a form of God to whom they now offer their daughter's hand.

The mantras then chanted:
"She who stands here, pure before the holy fire. As one blessed with a good mind, a healthy body, life-long companionship of her husband (Sumangali Bhagyam) and children with long lives. She who stands as one avowing to stand by her husband virtuously, be tied with this grass rope to the sacrament of marriage."

Thanksgiving Vedic hymns follow, to the celestial caretakers of her childhood, the deities of Soma, Gandharva and Agni. Having attained maturity, she is now free to be given over to the care of her man.

The Vedic concept underlying this is that in her infancy Soma gives her the coolness of the moon. Then the Gandharvas gives her playfulness and beauty. And when she becomes a maiden Agni gave her passions