I Love Indian Weddings...

When I was a little girl I dreamed of a big white dress wedding...It wasn't until I got older that I realized the beauty of an Indian wedding. The customs, music, dancing, it's like having a week long party to celebrate your love. Plus there is the added fun of getting to pick out 3 different outfits! Like Sarah over at La Jeune Marie I think I am having wedding withdrawal. For all the planning that went into our 3 day, 5 event wedding it feels like it was just a dream! That's why I loved seeing these pictures of Parminder Nagra's wedding (Bend it Like Beckham, ER). How STUNNING is she???




I love the cake and her dresses are gorgeous! It definitely brings back memories!
Photos from www.okmagazine.com

Fun Find

A lot of people have been jumping on the Go Green bandwagon lately. There is even a committee at work to think of ways to make our company a greener place! Whether it's because you really believe in it or because everyone else is doing it, going green is very important and I'm just glad so many people are starting to take interest.

I found these FABULOUS wedding invitations I wanted to share because not only are they green but they have something special about them.

These cards are embedded with wildflower seeds and can actually be planted! So for everyone that gets an invitation as opposed to just throwing them away after the wedding (I generally keep mine for crafty purposes) they can plant them and have a wonderful memory from your wedding! You can get the invites printed in any of these 9 colors and I don't think that these should be limited to wedding cards and probably would work well for engagement parties or anniversary parties.
I absolutely love the idea of getting one of these and am tempted to order a sample just to see if it really works! For more information check here.

Choices

So I finally got back my Thank You card drafts from my photographer....and I think I am leaning towards this one....

The only thing I don't like is she seemed to have airbrushed my face which is fine but I don't want to look like spray tan barbie....Here is the image on the thank you card compared with the original....I think I like the natural one a lot better with maybe a slight touch up....

Here is the second choice....

I like them both but am leaning toward the first with the airbrush taken out....What do you guys think?? HELP!!!!

Mini Books

My grandmother is the eldest of 8 sisters and 2 brothers and my wedding was a chance for 9 out of 10 of those siblings to get together! The picture above is all 8 sisters together for the first time since my grandmother got married! Can you imagine?? With my great grandparents passing away in the last year all of them have had such a hard few months leading up to the wedding and I knew that even though they were getting together for a happy occasion emotions would be hard to control over such a great loss....
When I found out they all would be coming I wanted to do something special commemorating my great grandparents for each of them. I brain stormed ideas but nothing really came together until I found a tutorial on how to make a mini album using one 12x12 piece of paper. I don't remember whose blog I saw it on but I sincerely thank you for posting the tutorial. The book was the perfect gift because it was small enough for them to carry it with them daily, and whenever they felt a loss they could pull it out and look at it. There were tears when I handed them out but they all loved them! These pictures aren't that great because I only had a few seconds to take them since my henna party was going on downstairs! (Each one had the their initial on the front.)

After the wedding I made a few more of these per request. My mom didn't want the ribbon in hers so I made hers with a magnet so it stays shut in her purse.

I made two others which I don't have pictures of one for me and one for my cousin Amy which are similar to the first ones I made....I love having a little piece of them with me whenever I feel like I need them......I only met my great grandfather twice, once one I was very young and then again a few years ago. I was lucky enough to be able to spend my great grandmothers last few days with her and to have her bless all of my wedding outfits. Despite having such little time with them their personalities were so loving that not a day goes by that I don't remember them, and I wore the bangles they blessed for me at every event of the wedding. Not a day goes by that I don't think of them and I know they are looking over me from wherever they are....

Video Update

Here is the video of the other couple


While I wouldn't dream of doing anything like that for fear of giving my granparents a heart attack....we did do something similar we started off dancing to Edwin McCain's "I Could Not ask for More" and the second half was parts of the following song....We basically just copied the steps from the video....it really was a lot of fun :)

Happy Friday!

This week just flew by but since it's the first full day at work I am sure today is going to drag!! I really need to upload some pictures from my camera this weekend of more projects!! For now I'll tell you a little bit about our traditional Raas-Garba Night that we had the day before the wedding.

The name garba comes from the Sanskrit term Garba Deep. Garba, when translated, most closely resembles the English preposition inside, and Deep is a small earthenware lamp. For this reason, many traditional garbas are performed around a central lit lamp. Traditionally, either the lamp (the Garba Deep), or an image of Amba is placed in the middle of the concentric rings as an object of veneration, thereby delineating the dance. People dance around the deity clapping rhythmically. At every step they gracefully bend sideways, the arms coming together in sweeping gestures, up and down, left and right, each movement ending in clap.
The Dandiya Raas dance
Modern garba is also heavily influenced by raas, this is played using sticks and dancing to a fast beat. The merger of these two dances has formed the high-energy dance that is seen today. (info from wikipedia)
For our Dandiya (the sticks used in this dance) my mom and aunt made these to match our outfits. The just took regular thick wooden rods and covered them with fabric and ribbon, for extra fun the put small bells on the bottom. This made ours stand out against everyone else's clear plastic ones. Notice how they matched perfectly!


All our decorations were on bhandini theme which is a traditional style of fabric, I even requested on our invites that everyone wear something made out of that fabric to help us get in the mood for a fun night of traditional dance! Here is a picture of what bhandini looks like....

Garba always performed in circles with a deity in the center, under the deity we had a traditional rangoli. Rangoli is a design made out of sand and are very popular at Diwali (our festival of lights). In this case we used saw dust which is quicker to make such a large design. This isn't the best picture of it but you get an idea. For more information on rangoli you can go here.
Here's another sample rangoli.....

We also brought some bhandini sari's from India to use as decoration and brighten up the place. My family did an AWESOME job and it came out exactly as I pictured it! I cannot thank you guys enough for all you did!!

And last but not least a picture of the beautiful hand painted pots that my mom made!! The matched perfect to the theme of the night and to our outfits again :)

Ok so I really did ramble today but i hope you enjoyed learning a bit about my culture and you enjoyed all the bright colors and fun decorations as much as I did! And again a HUGE thanks goes out to my family that helped out with this you guys are the best! For those of you who performed I won't post pictures for fear of being exiled from my family but there are no words that can express how much it meant to me....and mom if your goal was to make me cry you definitely achieved it with that song!! Love you all!!

Reception Table Names

I have a few little projects to share but unfortunately I haven't had a chance to upload the pictures from my camera....So for now I'll share these....Our focus for our wedding was to make sure everyone had a good time and that everything was very us. Instead of having regular table numbers we decided to do name the tables with things about us such as birth place, college, etc. To make a long story short we couldn't come up with enough for 30 tables so we decided to go with Hindi movie names specifically romantic movies. I had 10 different pictures and 3 of each one. We then had our photographer match our place cards to the same design I created in photo shop for these. The purple and gold color scheme matched the colors of the outfit I wore to our reception. Overall everyone thought they came out really cute and added a touch of us to each table :)

Wedding Things

Now that I am finally settling I am just getting back to scrapping....I have pictures of other things but that would require finding the wire to transfer them off my camera...moving is NO fun take it from someone who knows! Anyhow Indian weddings are known for all their ceremonies, it's a nice way to enjoy each and every step of your wedding with your family around you. My mom made these for the invitation ceremony where we all get together to address the invitation cards. My uncle did some of the free hand drawing and then she glitzed it up with glitter and gemstones. They came out gorgeous and very traditional looking which I loved! Thanks mom for all your hard work!