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Link love to Indian Wedding blogs

7 Jul

Hello!

Hope you enjoyed reading our very first guest post. If you haven’t read it yet, head over here to get a glimpse of another delhibride’s wedding plans!

I wanted to update you with 3 new blogs I have added to my Daily Dose of All Things Wedding list (on the right hand column of this blog) -

  • littlebrownbride
  • All About Maharashtrian Weddings
  • The Crazy Indian Wedding

All three of them are unique in their own way, but their purpose is the same - to provide inspiration and a little bit of help to all Indian brides in planning their big day!

To wrap up, here are some useful links for weekend browsing for my fellow brides-to-be -

  • Found a great write up on the different ways to keep a dupatta on your head via littlebrownbride
  • Lehenga inspiration via The Crazy Indian Wedding
  • This bride wore a lehenga I am still totally in love with via My Asian Wed
  • Educate yourself on some embroidery styles from India via The Indian Wedding Blog

Happy browsing! :)

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When is the right time to start looking for my wedding lehenga?

26 Jun

The answer is always - asap. Unless your wedding is more than 9-10 months away, start looking as early as as you can.

Reasons to start off as early as possible

  1. Find the right shops: If you want to go to a LOT of shops to first get an idea of what is available in the market, start spending some time shopping asap. Go out and explore what shops are there, which ones suit your budget and your style. I had never been lehenga shopping, so I started looking in February for my October wedding.
  2. Lehengas are not made over-night: Most lehengas are custom-made, and they can take anywhere between 1 to 3 months to make, depending on the kind of work you want. Keep enough time margin to get any alterations made.
  3. Find matching accessories: You also want to leave ample time to find jewelry, shoes and other accessories that match your lehenga.
  4. Plan the colors for all events: You don’t want to repeat colors on multiple-wedding functions. Knowing the color of your main wedding lehenga beforehand will help with choosing the color of your mehendi, sangeet or/and reception clothes. Since shopping for other functions is not as time-consuming, best to get the wedding lehenga out of the way first.
  5. Wait for a sale: A lot of shops go on sale during certain months of the year. Do a little bit of research and find out if you can time your purchase during sale season. Again, the earlier you start, the more the probability that a sale will be on during the time you’re looking to buy.

Avoiding the I-found-a-great-lehenga-in-the-first-store-I-visited syndrome

When you first start looking around, you can potentially find a lehenga very early on that you feel is “the One”. Please ignore the strong urge to just buy the lehenga and save yourself months of shopping (if you have that kind of time, that is). The wedding is too far off, don’t buy it. I’ll tell you why -

I found a very pretty lehenga in February itself but since the wedding was a good 8 months away, I didn’t buy it. And in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t pick it up. Why? A number of reasons. I found a much better lehenga later on. Back then, I was clueless about what kinds of lehengas were available. Figuring out what style I liked also took some time. So start looking asap, but hold your horses – don’t buy one till you’ve gone to atleast a few good shops. Getting a sense of what’s available, what your personal style is, and what fits your budget – it all takes time. If you have the luxury of time, use it. And don’t forget the all important aspect of lehenga shopping with your family – enjoy it! You get to be a bride only once (hopefully)!

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Wedding Planning Updates - 2nd week of June

14 Jun

Last weekend was mini-vacation weekend. My family went for a quick 2-day trip on the outskirts of Delhi, and I had my first - ok, first two - spas!

And yes, my whole routine’s haywire now. Have not worked out since last Friday! But, I’ll get back to it starting tomorrow.

Other developments have been taking place -

Wedding Lehenga - Found & Lost(?)

I found the perfect lehenga a few weeks back. But I looked at the price tag and I was like ack! But, we found a designer who said they could make an exact copy. I was so psyched - yes! I’ll wear the prettiest lehenga on planet Earth and it will still be in my budget! Taayein-taayein-phiss happened yesterday - I saw the sample yesterday (the designer did one kali/panel of the lehenga) and my whole family was majorly dissapointed. We realised that maybe the designer’s designing sensibilities did not match ours, and we’re wondering where the hell to get it made from now! Mother wants to drag me all over Delhi this weekend to find a new wedding lehenga that’s readymade. *sigh* So we seem to be back to square one, unless we feel confident about finding some other designer who can make an exact copy.

Photographer/Videographer - save me from “Madam idhar dekho! Face neeche, aankhein upar!”

Spending a bomb on photographers and videographers is no longer making sense. In an Indian wedding, it seems it’s typical to chalk out a budget but then slowly realise that you’ve overshooting your budget by quite a bit. The lehengas you like are pinching (ok, more like tearing apart) your pockets, you go with the caterer who’s slightly over budget because you don’t want to compromise on quality of food (come on, you know you can’t go cheap here), the trousseau budget is expanding manifold because you just didn’t realise how much a suit and saree for a formal occassion cost…the list is endless. Back to the point - I have decided that we are not shelling out huge sums for capturing wedding memories. My fiancé came up with a great idea - we’ll buy an SLR camera which his sisters/friends will use to click pics at his house (which we will then gift to his sister as she’s always wanted one), I’ll borrow an SLR camera from a friend for getting more candid shots at my house, we’ll buy one handycam to capture videos at his house, and I already have an SLR camera that I want to use for video-shooting as it has HD video! We’ll also, of course, have our normal studio wala team for covering the ceremonies. But what will be required on our part is some amount of effort - explaining to him what kind of photos we want, what kind of video editing we want, etc. So, for example, I want candid plus documentary plus some posed images - I’ll tell him “bhaiya, please don’t flash very bright lights in people’s eyes while you are trying to take a candid photo, because then they will become concious” and “bhaiya, please don’t take videos of people posing for the camera becuase I don’t want videos of people stuck in time - that’s what a camera is meant to do!” However, I’m still open to ideas - in case anyone knows how I can afford a Vishal Punjabi and Vinayak Das/Snigdha Sheel, please feel free to get in touch with me at thedelhibride at gmail dot com or leave a comment here. Even if your idea involved fund raising to be able to afford that gorgeous lehenga, and these amazing photographers/videographers! Please!

MNBB (My Nose But Better)

I’ve suffered from blackheads my whole life. Never cared too much about it. Now suddenly, I do. Everyone says I need to get a pre-bridal package done at a salon. Ummm…why? Can’t I just take better care of myself over the next few months and look my best anyway? Well, it’s not that I’m against salon treatments. They’re just alien to me. But, I do want to get rid of these damn blackheads. So last night I used a scrub, then steamed, and then used a multani mitti mask (Himalaya’s). My skin looks absolutely great today, but the blackheads are still there (duh!). I even scrubbed tomato on my nose a few days back. Not much of a difference really. I’ve been scouring the pages of all the top Indian beauty blogs on how to remove blackheads, and man oh man! There are sooo many ways, apparently. Will any of them work on me? Stay tuned to find out.

Ciao for now!

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Wedding Planning updates - first weekend of June.

4 Jun

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for not putting up the honeymoon and wedding checlist as I’d promised. The weekend was jam packed with wedding stuff, and I just could not find the time to do this.

Anyway, here’s what I covered this weekend -

Shopping Saturday

Went to a shop called Utsav at Krishi Vihar (near Chirag Dilli) and bought one suit ka kapda. Also bought a dupatta that I will get made into a kurti. Gave the suit ka kapda to a tailor who sits right next to the shop in Krishi Vihar. If he does a good job, I’ll probably give him all my suits to stitch because his pricing was really reasonable. Then headed off to Frontier Raas in South Extension to look for Sangeet lehenga. Didn’t find anything light enough to wear on sangeet, plus it was too expensive for a simple sangeet lehenga that I was looking for  so probably going to get it stitched by a designer I know. I’m meeting her next Sunday so let’s see how it goes.

Guest List Sunday

Finally counted a realistic number of people expected at the wedding. The number is extremely large, but thankfully the farmhouse is large enough to accomodate everyone, in case everyone shows up. Also made my parents count number of people invited to Sangeet and number was exceeding capacity of our venue! Considering doing the sangeet at same venue as wedding now. The farmhouse was anyway booked for both days, just to be on the safe side. Phew! So we have a choice now, and I think we’re probably going for the farmhouse.

I’m considering adding another Page to the blog, will put it up as soon as it’s done. And Wedding Workout is going well - have been putting in some workout time every alternate day - so far, so good!

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Looking for my wedding lehenga at South Extension

21 May

I needed to make a trip to South Extension market on Saturday morning, before heading off to Chandni Chowk. So I went to Ushnaq Mal first, since my parents thought they had good wedding lehengas. Most of it was too much chamki (in-your-face-shiny) that not only looks fugly but also photographs terribly. But, there was ONE lehenga, a beautiful light pink with a lot of embroidery, but the toned done kind. It was a sophisticated lehenga, and I had even decided to get it made with a coral pink base matching with a mint green blouse (don’t ask me why but I’m totally obsessing over this coral-mint green combo)! However, I didn’t put down an advance for the order and told the guy that I would confirm by the next day. The reason was that, although the lehenga itself was beautiful, other than the embroidery there was nothing else that we “designed” for it. I mean, anyone can get a pretty base for a lehenga was subtle embroidery, put a straight line border of a contrasting color at the bottom, a matching blouse and 2 dupattas that also match. Ummm…it didn’t involve any real designing, it wouldn’t be as unique as I’d wanted and honestly, since I took elements from three different lehengas to put mine together, I just couldn’t visualise it. The guy said he’d have it ready by early September, but…I wondered how stressed I would feel for the next 3 and a half months not sure of how the lehenga would turn out. It’s a matter of trusting someone’s sense of design. Take Mansi Gupta for example (shes a designer who sits at Le Meridian in Delhi and designed my roka ceremony anarkali suit) - even then the whole concept and color combo was in our heads, we designed it together, and I was barely able to visualise it. But the outcome was amazing! I loved what she did and now I am sure that she understands my sense of style, I trust her blindly to give me something I’d love. I get her now, and she gets me. I obviously didn’t have that level of comfort with that uncle (who btw is a pervert, so word of caution to all the girls - avoid Ushnaq Mal, and if you can’t then do insist on the girl taking your measurements, definitely not that old uncle).

So I left Ushnaq Mal thinking, the lehenga is so pretty, but I’m just not sure about it.

I’ll continue this story in tomorrow’s post…off to sleep now, need to wake up early to workout (YES, I’ve started doing some basic stretches and crunches at home for the last few days. Another post on working out some other time, I promise!) Good night fellow Bride to Be’s!

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Wedding Lehenga Shopping Begins!

16 May

I have been pinning the lehenga looks I’m loving onto my pinterest boards. There are very few bridal lehengas, because I’m picky like that. I’m narrowing down what I like, will be going to Chandni Chowk this weekend to check out some out. Till date, I have seen lehengas at -

  1. Kapil & Mmonika, Lajpat Nagar - Some modern stuff, but most of it is really heavy and really expensive - in my opinion, not worth it. One of the sales women is really annoying, over-bearing types - she keeps giving her opinion even when it’s evident you don’t care about it! The other sales woman is really sweet - she gives you your space to decide (you will need that since they’re so expensive), but provides help willingly when you need it.
  2. Heritage, South Ex - It has some really, really classy Indian wear, for both men and women. Their sherwanis look really great, and they have an absolutely amazing collection of suits and sarees. I haven’t really looked for lehengas over here, but there was ONE that I saw that I fell in love it (but it was for 2 lakh!). The only downside? It’s an expensive shop.
  3. Frontier Raas, South Ex - has a good variety of lehengas, and caters to many budget sizes. Although most of their stuff is something almost every bride will wear (uniqueness factor is low for most lehengas), they still have some pretty solid designs that will flatter and please most brides. Must-visit. (I already saw a pink lehenga here I absolutely adored and would’ve bought it but the only problem was - I found it in Feb! Was too early to buy my lehenga, plus it was one of the first shops I’d stepped into)
  4. UM MoolChand, South Ex - I don’t remember the name of this shop, but they showed me a few pretty lehengas. Their range starts from about 60,000 to 70,000. Again, not very unique pieces but would appeal to most brides.
  5. CTC, Great India Place, Noida - They also had a fairly decent lehenga collection - large variety. Found a dark blue one that looked good on me, but, the color didn’t seem very bridal. Had gone there during sale season and decent bridal lehengas were available for 20,000 to 30,000!
  6. Anita Dongre, Phoenix Mills, Mumbai - Some really wearable lehengas, not super heavy and obviously, very stylish. But the damn price tag! Definitely a good choice for people who can afford it!

Still to see -

  • In South Ex: Ushnaq Mal, Greenways (not sure if they have lehengas?), Perfection House, Ritika Bhasin
  • In Karol Bagh - Frontier Bazaar, Anarkali (recommended by a lot of people)
  • In Modi Nagar - CTC Mall (recommended by a friend, but it’s REALLY far off from where I live. Let’s see if I manage to get there)
  • In M-block market, GK2 - Art Karat Creations (one of my relative’s got a gorgeous wedding lehenga from here)
  • M-block market, GK1 (clueless about which shops sell lehengas here)

In case you’re looking for an extensive list of shops to buy bridal lehengas from, check out this post on Peaches & Blush (P&B). In case this is the first time you’re hearing about P&B, YOU’RE WELCOME! :)

I’ll keep adding updates to this post over the next month and a half. I need to place the order for my wedding lehenga by end of June. God help me!

PS. Another great post on Wedding Shopping in Delhi can be found on Marigold Events here.

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Some Latest Scoop

22 Mar
Some useful things I’ve come across recently:
Lehenga Draping Styles for Brides - many, many different styles! Very enlightening to us uneducated to-be-brides :)
Honeymoon Trousseau for the Indian Bride - some silly things, some practical ones…
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