thedelhibells: Reception

I got married on a Sunday. And the Reception was on a Wednesday. In between — there was sheer madness.

Monday morning, I woke up in my new house. My first day as a married girl. We had a late breakfast, and I changed into a sari that was gifted to me by my in-laws. It was draped haphazardly, as I was in the mood to do it myself, newly independent married girl and all that!

It’s evident that the sari was draped by me, the novice!

My husband (no longer fiancé) and I went over to my house for lunch, as that is the tradition. Post lunch, we changed into outfits gifted to us by my parents and went back to our new home. Yes, that was a lot of sari changing for a single day! This time around though, I got the sari draping right with the help of my mother. And it stayed intact through the evening!

Once we were back to our new home, we played a few games. I won most :)

Undoing the knots

We had dinner, and in what seemed like just the blink of an eye – day 1 was over.

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Tuesday was going to be a hectic day. We had to get all our honeymoon essentials together, which included shopping for any last-minute items. And then we had to pack as much of it as we could, plus meet my husbands’ friends for some quality bonding time. In the evening, my husband asked me, “What happened to your photo booth idea? Didn’t you want to have one?” I had wanted one, but hadn’t been able to manage it for the lack of time. “Why don’t we have one tomorrow? At the reception,” he exclaimed. Ummm…because it’s tomorrow, honey! We can’t manage to put up a photo booth in a day. I don’t even know where to begin! Will the photographer agree? What needs to be set up? How will we get props? What will the theme be?

My husband got onto the phone, and got everything done in under 10 minutes. He called Tarun (our wedding photographer), who immediately agreed to it and even gave us a lot of helpful suggestions on how to get it done! Then he called his friends and told them, “Get us props. Lots of props.” And they went off shopping and got us plenty! Then he called up the venue and gave them specifications about a separate photo booth area. And…it was done! I was going to have a photobooth at my Reception! 1000 brownie points for the knight-in-shining-armor husband!

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Day 3. Reception Day. After a little more honeymoon packing, I went off to the parlor. You’ve seen the getting ready pictures in my last post. On this day, I loved my makeup the most – I got the golden cream eyeshadow look, which is something I always wanted. But overall, I think I looked the worst. Mainly because of my hairstyle I think. I just wasn’t loving it. Although it looked great from behind, I was not a fan of it from all the other angles.

This was the only day when I was completely alone at the parlor. No sister with me (mine was so tired, I don’t think she even went to a parlor that day!), no relatives around. But Mona was there, my makeup artist. And over the last few days, I had spoken so much to her, it was as good as having a friend around. Because I was so finicky and unsure about my hair, we got a little delayed. It was the only day I was late. And it was also the only day I first went back home from the parlour, picked up my husband and other family members, and then went to the venue.

We arrived at the venue and to me, it felt like we walked into a dream. The decor was beautiful! This was the first function I was attending for which I had done nothing, and had known nothing before hand. There was a band playing, a dance floor on the other side and then the stage for the meet and greet. In between all this was our special made-in-a-day photobooth! With musical notes strung as the backdrop, the photobooth had a props table right next to it. What had started off as a Music theme had turned into a mish mash of all sorts of themes – we had a guitar balloon, tiaras, sunglasses and masks! There were funny wigs, big hats, moustaches – you name it, we had it!

We first met the guests on the stage and followed it up with cutting a congratulatory cake. Our sisters re-did their dance performance here, and a cousin of my husband played some mean guitar on a Coldplay song.

From the corner of my eye, I could see that the photobooth was garnering a lot of attention. And I couldn’t wait to get into it! After some dancing to the DJ’s tunes, we headed over to the photobooth – finally! We got some cute pictures, some downright hilarious pictures…and it was hands down THE most fun part of the whole night!

I put together a slideshow for you to enjoy :)

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We got done with the Reception at 1 am, and headed back home. But our day was nowhere near over. We had to wrap up packing for the honeymoon as we were catching a morning flight! I managed to grab 60 minutes of shut-eye time while my husband pulled an all-nighter. We rushed to the airport, and entered the flight a little low on sleep but heady with newly-married joy. Australia, here we come!

How was the honeymoon? Find out everything, and more! In what will probably be the final post in this series - thedelhibells: Honeymoon. Coming up this June.

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You can read the whole thedelhibells series here:

1. Prologue
2. Mata Ki Chowki
3. Pre-Wedding Week
4. Pre-Wedding Shoot
5. Haldi
6. Mehendi
7. Sagan
8. Sangeet
9. Wedding
10. Reception Preview
11. Reception

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Photographs by Tarun Chawla Photography

Tags: how to get a photobooth, Indian wedding, photobooth, photobooth at a wedding, Reception, thedelhibride's wedding, wedding games