A beautiful dream come true – your wedding day! Holding each other’s hands and promising to never let go come may whatever, wearing astonishing dresses for the special occasion, greeting so many people and getting blessings from them for your upcoming new adventure….Indian wedding is all about bright colours, long list of guests whom the bride or the bridegroom might not even met once in their life, greetings with distant relatives. To add more colour to already a colourful event you will have to have certain plans. Here’s a quick guide to have a wonderful event:
- Choose your wedding day well in advance
Selecting your wedding day will give you enough time to prepare. Wedding is a very special occasion and one of the most important events of our life. Now-a-days both would be bride and groom want their wedding day to be a memorable one. For that to happen you need plenty of time for planning. Although from my personal experience I can tell you even if you have enough time to plan, on your wedding day you’ll feel nervous unless you have hired a professional wedding planner. That adds extra cost, but surely leaves you relaxed and a well executed wedding ceremony. If you do not want to hire a wedding planner you need to have some friends who can advise you to add magic in the ceremony, you will have to search from Google/any search engine to get some ideas, for example if you want a friends’ gathering/Bachelor(or bachelorette) party how you want to do. There are plenty of things to do even for a bachelor/ bachelorette party. Hosting a well executed friends’ gathering with your close friends before your big day will definitely give you a wonderful memory to cherish forever as after your wedding you will lose your bachelor status. Explore all the local wedding venues, their costs and the service. Sometimes local venues offer you a beautiful wedding at less price. As the proverb goes, “marriage is not only about this life…it creates bonding for the next seven successive lives”….you may want your wedding to remain a memorable one by having destination wedding. You may want to have some special programs other than the wedding day programs….all of these require plenty of time in hand. So be smart and plan for a wedding with longer time in hand.
2. Get advice from the elder ones
In my opinion elder people are the biggest resource when it comes to rituals regarding wedding. They have seen lots of Indian wedding. Different regions have different cultures and traditions. Simple looking weddings too have so many rituals. Don’t miss the chance to include as many traditional rituals as possible! You surely don’t want to regret later! Keep your wedding ceremony traditional as per your culture. In our daily life we cannot remain totally traditional but wedding ceremony lets us know our culture and our traditions which are being observed for thousands of years.
3. Keep additional programs too
Pre-wedding friend’s party and bachelor/bachelorette trip for the couples who will be married soon are a must these days. Having a plan for bachelor/bachelorette party for example selecting location, number of attendees, food to be served etc. will save you a lot of money yet will give a beautiful memory. A trip before wedding with very close friends is always a special one. Gathering of both would-be bride and bride-groom’s close relatives or even a trip with them helps to build a strong connection. Many Indian cultures have engagement ceremony in traditional way for example bride or bridegroom’s elder family members bless the bride and the bridegroom respectively on an auspicious day. But western style engagement ceremony can also be added on the program list. Post-wedding dance party or even theme based couple walk on the ramp will leave the invitees feel like stars.
4. Explore your place to get the best for your pre-wedding photo shoot and video
Pre-wedding photo-shoot memories are one of the best memories! Soon-to-be bride and the bridegroom who have never posed infront of the camera in filmy style pose for the first time. This creates a sweet memory! As soon as your wedding date is fixed, explore your locality and the surroundings you will definitely find some places worth to be photographed for your pre-wedding photoshoot. You can do your photo-shoot in multiple places in multiple style dresses. I will recommend to have one of your photoshoot series in a different area for example if you come from a plain land, phtoshoot along the seashore will give a different good feeling or if you come from hilly area, photoshoot on an architectural spot of plain land could be a nice idea. You can have place based photoshoot or theme based or nature based.
Before you jump on the pre-wedding video please spend some time with your partner and write up a short story. I have seen many pre-wedding videos without any story in them. You can make a video on how you met your partner or recreate one movie scene. If you know little bit of western or Indian dance your video will be “super-duper” hit!. I know acting in front of the camera can be many times a not-so-easy one. But believe me this is just an unbelievable opportunity to create a wonderful moment! I always believe marriage is all about fun at the same time maintaining one’s own traditions and culture. So use this chance to showcase your hidden talent. In your older days the photographs and the video and the memories related to them will definitely bring a smile on your face.
5. Use traditional accessories
I love it when wedding is done as per someone’s customs. It brings a different aura in the event. Wear traditional accessories as per your culture. For example if it is a Bengali wedding wearing “shakha-pola” is a must. Wearing saree in a particular traditional way or wearing traditional jewellery or for men wearing traditional dress at the event brightens the ceremony.
6. Gifts to the near and dear ones alongwith the Invitation Card
When you send the Invitation Card for the wedding program, please try to send them alongwith some sort of gifts like dry fruit wrapped in gift box or some sort of trendy jewellery items or a piece of handcraft item which is specialty of your locality.
7. Gifting the invitee as a “Thank-you” token
Usual tradition in India is to gift the newlywed couple. But if you gift the invitees as a “thankyou” token, both you and the invitees will feel happy. While choosing the token keep in mind the common taste/likeness of your invitees in case you are gifting all of them the similar kind of gift. In my opinion the best thing to do will be to send gifts to those who attended your wedding later on. Thus you will be able to select different gifts for each invitee. For instance, if any elder one is spiritualistic, gifting a God idol will make him/her feel good. Gifting bangle box/jewellery box can be an awesome idea for women of all ages. Keep a note of the persons who attended your wedding and their proper address.
8. Help those in need
Wedding ceremony in India involves lots of money. Venue, clothes, decoration, make-up, photography, food etc. cost us a lot. One usual tradition is to gift our near and dear ones beautiful attires. This time make your wedding even more special by gifting attires to the persons whom you have never met. Gifting them will give you a special good feeling….happiness of a different level which can never be compared with materialistic pleasure. Throughout my life I have believed that good deeds are always returned back.
9. Creating a unique photoshop
Create a photoshop with unique theme. Theme can be of anything like flowers, graphics, lighting etc. Taking photo with the invitees or “couple photo-shoot” there at the photoshop will add extra charm to your wedding.
10. Special entry of bride and the bridegroom
Entry of Bride and the bridegroom in a different manner is always remembered. Bride entry in a palanquin is a classic one. I have attended one Tamil wedding where the bride came in a beautiful chariot. Bride accompanied by friends/sisters/Cousins in similar dress can make the entry very beautiful. Thin layer of flower petals on the way to mandap makes the bride entry pretty.
Bride groom normally comes to the mandap in car or horse. But this can be even more special if the bridegroom comes in “bollywood”style. My mother said my grandfather went to marry riding an elephant that was provided by the then royal families! How classic! Now also this can make an “awesome, cool” bridegroom entry. Dancing bridegroom alongwith his “barat-party”, Chariat entry, speed boat entry (where the wedding venue is near water bodies) are some other ideas to have a special bridegroom entry!
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