Wedding File 5 : Mehendi Album

Mehendi occurred the evening of Haldi and Baat, by that day all of my friends had reached Delhi so the house was full of people!!

There are so many tiny details to cover so doing this post as a picture album!

Community Center 

One day before the wedding.

MEHENDI CELEBRATION

The entrance gate

The original theme was skyblue and silver but was changed last minute to white and gold. 

The Decorator tried to reason with me that 'jhula' are out of fashion and nobody uses them anymore but  I insisted and it did look great in the end :D

We had churi's from Babu churi wala of hanuman mandir, for everyone.

I had one request to my mehendi wali that the mehendi should have  a LOT of peacocks and she insured that I did!

TINY TIP :
To all Brides-to-be insure your leg's mehendi is done in a private room either before the function or post. Because when you sit down for it it becomes a little difficult to sit 'elegantly'

My Mehendi started in the afternoon so by the time I actually got to the venue both my legs were done and dry and one of my hand was just finished. Ofcourse travelling from home to the venue (which was quite close) required all my friends to pick up my lehenga from all sides but it did ensure that I had a LOT of fun at Mehendi and still got to go to bed on time.

We had Ladies mehendi wali. Its more comfortable plus they did a good job and put mehendi very fast so nobody had to wait!
I had doli, groom, bride, ganeshji, dhol, shahanayi and looads of peacock. My whole mehendi was finished in 5 and a half hours. It costed us 11,000.
The others she took Rs. 50 per hand for Arabic mehendi (bhel) and Rs. 100 per hand for full.

The Mehendi wali tied the white handkerchief on my kangna so that it won't keep moving and disturbing the mehendi, thankfully she did because then I got a chance to keep my hands on the sides, she also left the back side of one hand empty till the end so I could easily rest my hand.

When she started with my mehendi on the first hand I felt a new profound respect for all brides before me.

WARNING : keeping your hands straight without touching anything or without bending it. Big OUCH! It hurts!! 

Once it drys out then its better but when its wet, it is a pain. Thankfully I had a lot of help from experienced people so I had people screaming at me to keep my hand straight, helping me with my lehenga and chunni, my friend made my hair, I did my makeup, my chachi helped me with my jewelry. 

Oh and this is the Lehegha I designed and made from scratch.
Post on DIY Lehenga coming soon!
Something like this readymade with the same quality would have normally cost me around 50k  in the market,  but doing it on my own cost me around 20k.
Could have been cheaper if I had chosen less expensive borders!

The Original Sketch of the lehenga

Our original plan was to have the DJ and food out in the lawn and Mehendi inside a hall but we made last minute changes and switched the DJ inside. That was actually the best idea we had, because guess what the room was sound proof and we were able to play Songs as loud as we wanted and as long as we wanted without worrying about 10:30 curfew.
So, TINY TIP : Try to get a sound proof hall for your sangeet function if possible.

We had dance performances which was started by my brother playing his drums!

Followed by my chachi chacha dancing on : chalo na naino say ban rey

Cousin Bhaiya n bhabhi on : Subha honey na dey

My little cousin sister dancing on : Maye ne maye munder pe tere bol raha hai kaga

Younger cousin brother on some instrumental song from Raavan

My cousin Bhabhi danced on a melody of 3 songs Aaja Nachley, Palki mein ho k saawar chali rey and a punjabi song (I dont know which) 

My sisters, me and my chachi's then had a dance on melody of many songs. We had earlier thought of having very decent slow 'bride' songs but then last minute decided to have full fun! The boy side wasn't present so we could dance on all jalla walla and jalebi bai!

Disco waley Khisco - Sisters

Mehendi hai rachney wali - Sisters

Dhoom tanna - Sisters and Me

Sasural Genda Phool - Me and my Chachi's

Chaan kay mohalla - Me and chachi's

Jalla Walla - Me and chachi's

Jalebi Bai - Me and chachi

Radha on the dance floor - Me, sisters and chachi's

Everyone in the family danced on the DJ later including my mom, dad, bhaiya who never dance! Even all my cousin dadi's and dadaji's! We had to eventually tell the DJ to stop we were soo tierd. 

It was also my mom and dad's anniversary that day!

TINY TIP : We have to give Bhaji to our relatives at the end of the wedding. Bhaji contains matri, gur, namak padey,etc. Since the wedding day would be so hectic we decided to give this on the mehendi day instead. 

Most of your family members will be present and your mom and dad, specialy your dad ;) would be quite free on this day so why not hand out any gifts or anything that you have to give to your relatives on this day.

We sat down for dinner at around 12, my Mehendi had dried out and pretty much fallen off while dancing, but I was quite happy. Had rajma chawal for dinner, my brother said I could have anything I fancied it was my function, so I asked for Gol gappey ka paani and the caterer was more than happy to supply! After my 2nd glass my sister scolded me to not have another "Gala kharab ho jaye ga" she said....so I had ice cream instead ;P

We went back home and the first thing my recently married friend did was to heat some laung on the tawa once the smoke started I put my hands on top to darken my mehendi and she rubbed a white rumal on the tawa and then rubbed it on the mehendi of my legs the effect : There is still a pattern on my leg that hasn't gone!! its been more than a month!

There is a small function that happens just before sunrise, your bhabi is suppose to get you water from the mandir while the stars are still out and you have to take bath in this water only on your wedding day.

 The mehendi function ended at around 1am, we argued that since the day has changed and nobody was in a state to get up in the morning at 4 we did this function before sleeping. 1'o clock at night my bhabhi could be seen singing out in the streets bringing water from the handpump!

I had an early night that day (compared to the 3-4 am that the brides usually sleep at) and for the first time in 24years me and my childhood friend had our first slumber party....

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Wedding File 4 : Haldi, What to expect...

I thought instead of self-obsessing soo much, let me make this post a little informative for the brides-to-be Ofcourse events might differ religion to religion and family to family, More or less things are similar if not same. Still for your information I am a North-Indian Brahmin Bride.

Haldi is mostly a fun event with everyone trying to get you dirty! However there are a LOT of tiny other things that are going on side by side.

Remember in the last post when I said the punditji did a  huge pooja on the morning of Tilak, well he made this as well.
This is a depiction of Ganeshji and all pooja's will start by worshiping this 'idol'.

So before I came to sit down for Haldi I had rice in my hand, my own chunni on my head and my mothers saree-ka-palla on my head too, i walked to this 'idol' put rice in front of it and then sat down on a pattri

The Clothes are suppose to be donated to a maid later on and well they end up getting dirty anyways so don't buy anything too fancy!

A lot of girls opt for Yellow saree's , yellow is the auspicious color to wear.
I however choose to wear a suit from Fab India.

The thing you see on the wall is called a saurti, its made on Diwali as well. 

During old weddings (read our parents weddings) the saurti was made on the wall itself, however we have switched to chart papers because :

a) You need this immediately after the phera's and since the weddings doesn't happen at the homes any more this saurti needs to be portable.

b) the walls doesnt get dirty

Ok so one of the hands is coated by ghee and the other by Mehendi then you put the hands on the saurti, so make sure the saurti is big enough for both your hands! 

Tiny Tip : You have to imprint your hands post wedding too, so have enough space for both sets of hand prints. (See how I have left the below potion empty)

Also, Coat both hands by ghee and then coat one of them by mehendi (on top of ghee) that way the mehendi won't leave any mark, also wash immediately!

You need saath suhagan ( 7 married women), but they should only be chachi's, taiji's or bhabhi's not dadi or nani. 

6 of them are paired off in group of 2's and the 7th is your mom.

Each pair has to together gather 5 food items (like dal, rice, wheat, rai,etc.) and put them in jars

After which each pair has to take a bit of items out of the jar and then grind them one by one, like the above picture, also each persons 'stick' should not touch each others. they have to repeat it with all 5 items. This has to be done in pairs, except your mom will do this alone.

Then all of them have to make migaudi (its called migaudi todna) this was originally done so that the girl will have migaudi's to take with her to cook in her new home.

And then starts the process of actual haldi-teel, the 1st picture has all the items (roli, haldi, mehendi, teel) that the green grass that you see in this picture is dipped into and then applied from your feet to your knees, to your arms, your shoulders and then your head.

This takes place either 5 or 7 times. 

The pandit on your tilak day will tell you if you have 5 teel-baan or 7

Your brother or sister starts it, then your mom and dad, and anyone else who wants to. Once its done the same people must in the same sequence do it again in the opposite way from your head to shoulder to arm to knees and then feet.

 Ofcourse we did have fun with it and told my brother that he must put it on his head as well!

Oh and my sisters were VERY happy when they found out they had to put Uptan on me. 

Make sure though that you pre inform everyone not to put uptan on your face, haldi makes your makeup go black so MUA's advice against it

Be prepared to get dirty, very dirty...I was comparatively very clean.

And then you have to take a bath real quick because everyone is waiting for you!

Make sure you come out with minimum 2 bangles in your hand, bindi and chunni on your head. I forgot all!

So had to take a chunni that came from the mandir as a wedding gift and my dadi gave a big huge bindi, my chachi gave me her bangles. In the end although this was better because then I had something from everyone.

Then they will put a small potli on your head like I have in this picture which actually contains poori's, which originally is the only thing your suppose to eat that day.

A chaddar will be held on your head and your sister will do your arti, plus your youngest sister will be asked to sit next to you. Everyone will put something in that chaddar (I am not sure what) and then it will be folded and put on your head.

That is then handed over to your mom.

 Then the Kangna is tied, my bhabhi did this but sometimes sisters tie it as well, 

we didn't tie the leg one (which is black)

For those who don't know kangna is a game that is played post wedding, your husband will open your's and you will open his. (More on wedding games in a post later)

Then there is a pooja of a Kumharan ( potter's wife) which your mother does.

We also had baat the same day, baat is when your mama (mother's brother) brings gifts for the bride and her family. This is done either under the mandap or at your home gate.

Added Information :

Mandap Gadna : Putting the mandap is also done on this day infact the day starts with that. This is done by the eldest brother-in-law, since I dont have one, being the eldest sister and all, mine was done by my bua-dadi. 

Time of event : We did this on the morning of Mehendi, its usually done on the wedding day but to avoid any hectic schedule on the day of the wedding we decided to switch this event to a day before. 

Food : Khadi chawal is a must on this day!

Music and Dance : We called in some 'banna-banni" singers and they sang all traditional songs while all of this was going on! Teasing and calling people by names such as Katrina Chachi, Shelia ki jawani bhabhi, Oh lala dadi, and then singing folk songs on which we all danced!

Wedding File 3 : Tilak

We were late! Very late! 

Everything was in line, we were ready and perfectly scheduled. There was a tiny pooja in the morning something we thought would be over within an hour max.

How wrong we were....

Apparently pooja of the lagan patrika is suppose to be VERY important and it didn't help that the panditji was a very senior one and he wouldn't take any shortcut! 

The pooja put our schedule back an hour. My makeup artist had to wait and when I finally got time to get ready for the evening her son's school called 

 "he has been in a fight.......hurt his head....hospital.....6 stitches!"

That is all I heard, That is all I needed to hear! 

Although I was ofcourse worried about that 12 year old boy but the thought of having to manage on my own for such an event made me tremble.

While my makeup artist tried to sort things out, my lehengha was being draped and OMG such a heavy lehenga it was! Somehow we tied it but it wasn't as perfect as the salesman at Frontier tied it.

Things do have a way of sorting themselves out in the end....

The groom side was late as well so we actually arrived a couple of minutes before them! 

My makeup artist (hats off to her) after a glass of cold water calmed down, got her father to take care of her son. Did my makeup perfectly made sure I was completely happy with my drape before she left.

That doesn't mean bloopers of the day ended there, everyone did forget me in the car....

 Lehenga :

Lehenga was from Frontier Bazaar, Karol Bagh. In the range of 70k on sale, otherwise its around 90k.

The major challenge with this lehenga was that it had to follow the one I wore at my engagement and I would be wearing my bridal one just 2 days after this. So it had to be better than engagement and not similar to the bridal one. It had to be noticeable in a big gathering, the event was so planned that we would be among guests instead of on the stage so it had to be striking even at a distance...people should be able to identify the bride after all....

 Makeup and Hair:

Hair for me was not perfect, it was too high. However my makeup artist justified that she had to for the maata patti...well since everyone else liked it I guess I am ok with it them, just I had a different picture in mind....

Dance :

My surprise dance performance was a shock for all! including the boy..haha...I don't really dance a lot in front of family and had secretly been practicing with my sisters. The look of the boys face was priceless!!

Songs : Chalka Chalka re, Dheemey Dheemey Gaon and chudi bhi zid pay aayi hai

And then the boy pulled me up for a song as well...

Jewelry :

Necklace and earring were from Tanishq, one of the last jewelry we picked and the only colored gold I liked.

Hair accessories were brought randomly while searching for latkans for my blouses.

Matta Patti from the only artificial jewellry shop I liked Om Sons at Lajpat.

Bangles from Babu churi wala at M block GK

Photography :

Anjalis Noida

We did considered a few candid photographers but somehow stuck to anjalis.....even if you don't have a famous candid photographer it doesn't mean you can't get 'candid' pictures!

Wedding File 2 :Pooja

I think the last post I wrote before the wedding was on the pooja morning and I write the 100th post today about the pooja....

I think what I wrote pretty much sums up that day : "Craziness starts today! I am kind of enjoying sitting back and relaxing while I see my family members running around getting the house ready for the pooja.

Wedding jitters have finally set in. I was numb since the last few weeks but I guess seeing a big tent erected in front of your home kind of puts things in perspective. So every time I feel I am going numb I peek outside at the tent.

Its kind of exciting seeing your home all decked up knowing that behind the beautiful outdoors there are hidden wardrobe stuffed with things that shouldn't be seen."

Pooja turned out to be pretty good although since I am not so religious I slipped out in the middle and came back at the end ;P

This is one of the Saree's I designed

Happy New Year!!