WEDDING

I have been missing from Blogosphere for quite some time now and the reason for which was explained in my previous post. I have millions of posts lined up, the first being posting some wedding pics.

Life has changed dramatically after May 11th. Life has taken a complete gear change. From the role of a pillion driver to one on the hot seat …….life is treating me with surprise each day. I have surpassed everyones expectation and is being met with awe. The very same people who actually doubted my caliber are munching their words. Feels good know?. 

The after effect of being a wife after 12 hours of screaming and shouting at office is LACK of time!!!. I find my hands full by the time I return and by the end of the day I am too tired and lazy to post anything up here.

So here goes, the first lot of pics

Day before

I wore a traditional davani or half saree as it's called in some parts. The blouse is similar to that of a normal saree blouse and the bottom piece is like a skirt. Then you have a shawl. As you can see the border is lined with purple velvet and decorated with golden stones, a twist in the attire I would say. The day before we had a small mehandi function at my home. I vetoed the color red/maroon from the day I started thinking about my wedding trousseau .I chanced upon this golden/red brocade davani while on a trip to Coimbatore. The price tag was really impressive and I quite liked how gold looked against my skin tone. 

The only crunching factor was the net shawl which was slightly flashy and transparent. I got my davani stitched from Paris collections in Convent junction, Cochin. As for the accessories I wore a golden jhumka, gifted to me by my in-laws and a simple golden flower necklace. For the chudis I mixed and matched golden and red ones already available at hand. I wore my hair on both sides (A big mistake which I learnt as my voluminous hair refused to be a good girl throughout the function).

Wedding

I wanted a non-traditional color for my wedding trousseau. Purple which was my 1st choice, was already worn for the engagement and hence I had no other choice other than to wear green ya blue. Pink was already taken by my in-laws as my 2nd saree. I hit Coimbatore: Ganapathy silks in hope of finding a perfect wedding saree. With just 4 hours to spare, I had to get my choices right. I asked the sales person to show me shades of blue and gave my budget, I was bowled to say the least. They showed me at least 20 sarees, all different shades of blue. I picked up a few and opted for trial. I was just strolling by and that’s when I saw a delish blue shade in the higher range saree category.

It was way over my budget and few phone calls later my dad gave into my assurance that I would pay the extra cost inquired. Finally it was between two shades and two patters and there was a clear winner. The color of the saree my friends is ELECTRIC BLUE i.e., double shade of green and blue with gorgeous peacock motif.

I have nothing to say about the accessories section which is filled with gold, except for my earrings and the first choker. I was very particular that the earring would be chosen by me and my parents were quite okay with it. My parents usually steer clear of antique collection (high making charges) and jewelery with stones (dead investment). Jumkas are in vogue right now, but I wanted to steer clear of the usual ones. In the end I picked up something from the antique collection with white pearls adorning the end of the jhumka. I invested on this pair way before I even decided on my wedding saree so, my mom was worried if the white pearls would clash with the saree. Thankfully it didn't. I must tell you that as beautiful as the earrings looked, it did cost us a bomb because the astronomically high making charges. We paid 5 times the gold price for these earrings.

As for the choker, I was almost going to bill contemporary jewelery set and that's when I saw the lakshmi mala (Goddess lakshmi's pic is engraved in each section). It was chunky, eye catching, and traditional I quickly ditched the other necklace and billed this one instead. A definite good investment.

We don’t have many options for hairdos and the traditional mallu bride is supposed to tie her hair only in a specific way. The hair and makeup was done by my mom’s favorite salon: Kumkum at Thevara. The hair was perfect with all the morga flowers and vaarmudi (fake hair). The makeup was spot on, not a shade more not a shade less. I was pretty happy with the results…..

The bride and groom:)

so finally I am married!!!

I was decked in gold yeah!!!Typical mallu bride:). Our weddings are blink and miss affair. The muhurat was between 12:00om and 12:30 pm and I hardly remember anything from the ceremony. It all happened so fast. By the time I realized I was married, we had scores of guests smiling and shaking hands with us. Lemme tell you in spite of the day being a weekday, we had the hall full. Almost everyone I mean the entire 1500 guest turned up for the wedding. Phew!!!. By 1:30 it was time to change into the second saree, the groom had given.

As per traditions, the groom gives the bride two sarees, and as norm the traditional Kerala set mundu is usually worn during lunch and the third one during vidaai. I was gifted a pink+peach geometrical design saree which was selected by me and my in-laws. Well, we were short of time as we have muhurat to enter one’s new home and for me it was 2pm. I had decided that in case of time crunch I would just wear one of the sarees and skip one. The traditional Kerala saree was the one I chose to wear as the second saree.

Second saree

I was gifted two golden necklaces by my in-laws. The first one was a thook mala (The heavy one) and the second a nagapadam (Green one). I was also gifted few other necklaces and diamonds by my in-laws (I am one lucky gal!)

The green and the third necklace gifted by inlaws:)

The wedding heels need a special mention here, I scored these golden catwalk heels from jabong.com for freaking 600 bucks. Half of the time during ceremony they were off my legs still, they are so comfy and of proper fit. Initially when I ordered it, just few days to wedding and the customer care executives told me that it would take 5 working days for the heels to reach Cochin I went into panicky mode. In worst case scenario the heels would reach me just in time. Thankfully I didn't have to go into plan B mode, the shoes arrived in 2 days:)

Reception

We had the reception the day after and were held by the guy’s family at avenue centre. Lemme tell you something beforehand, our weddings and receptions are pretty boring ….there is no naach gana nor is it colorful. My husby had arranged for a DJ for all of his B-school mates who had come from various parts of India. I wore an olive green lacha/lehanga that I bought from Delhi. I bought it for cheap, had the lehanga stitched by the shopwalaas and the got the lining changed to satin. The top I got it stitched from Paris collections. As for the accessories I didn't do any shopping. It was all done by my darling behanas Bhav n Sou from Delhi. Bhav would send me images of the stuff and I would select ones that I liked from the comforts of my home. I am so lucky to have sisters like em. So the silver statement piece, bangles, earring and shoes were brought home the day before by my uncle. The function too was a grand success among the youngsters.  I wanted light makeup, but ended up like a makeup doll.  None of my relative liked my hair or makeup. I had specific something in mind for the hair, it came out pretty close to what I had envisioned. The hair and makeup was done by Naturals Kadavantra.