A guide to wedding tips, trends and experiences. Marriage event reviews, Wedding venue reviews and ideas, honeymoon destination tips, photography, wedding decor and much more.

Your honeymoon should be the perfect complement to your already fabulous Indian wedding.  Carry on the excitement of your special day by taking the time to choose a honeymoon destination that’s just right for you as a newlywed couple.  Romance is always the theme and you can’t go wrong with any of these international honeymoon dream destinations that are hot for 2010.

South Pacific

Whether you choose exotic Tahiti, Fiji, or Hawaii, you’ll be enveloped in a lush tropical paradise laden with gorgeous white sand beaches.  Here you’ll find the unique Polynesian culture expressed through generous hospitality and exquisite five-star resorts including stunning overwater bungalows.  Indulge yourself with a traditional Tahitian massage or enjoy a tiki-lit oceanside romantic dinner for two.

Caribbean

The allure of the Caribbean has long drawn honeymoon couples from around the world to its exceptional array of islands featuring distinct cultures and experiences.  In the Caribbean, the choice is yours – enjoy the French culture of Martinique and St. Lucia; the authentic Dutch flair of Aruba; the British heritage of Barbados; or the African flavour of Jamaica.  Here you can pamper yourself at an all-inclusive resort & enjoy endless water sports including scuba diving, snorkelling, and romantic sunset catamaran cruises.

Europe & the Mediterranean

Rich in history and romance, you’ll never be disappointed in choosing a European honeymoon destination.  Favorites include Italy (Rome, Venice, & Florence), France (French Riviera or Paris), London, England, and Greece. You’ll have access to the excitement of the big cities but you can choose your own private honeymoon hideaway to experience it from; galleries, museums, shopping, nightlife, and delicious cuisine await you.

North America

Traditional honeymoon destinations in North America are typically cities where you can lose yourself in luxury such Las Vegas or New York.  Many couples flock to the beaches of Florida (Florida Keys, Miami, or Orlando) or California (Sonoma Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles or Lake Tahoe) while others head for the more conventional Niagara Falls and the Poconos.  Mexico is another long-established destination for honeymoon couples with resort areas like Cancun, the Mayan Riviera, Los Cabos, and Acapulco; here you’ll find breathtaking five-star beach resorts with all the amenities while being enveloped in rich Mexican culture and history.

A Romantic Honeymoon Cruise

If you can’t decide on a specific destination, why not experience a few?  A cruise provides an all-inclusive venue complete with fine dining and entertainment.   With many cruises offering at least four ports of calls, it’s possible to enjoy a sampling of several different countries at once – visit the Caribbean, Asia, South America, Mexico, Europe, Australia, the Mediterranean, Hawaii, or even Alaska.  Many cruise lines offer complimentary gifts or honeymoon packages to newlywed couples.

In all of the above, there is the opportunity to choose a budget conscious, moderate, or totally extravagant honeymoon – again, the choice is yours.  Let your style, hopes, and dreams inspire you to help make all of your honeymoon wishes come true. I am sure your wedding planner in India will help you pick a great honeymoon destination.

You can checkout this Sunday’s matrimonial section in the Times of India – Check mate.

Weddings held in and around and North of Delhi can safely be called Punjabi weddings. A lot of communities across India have been influenced by the Punjabi wedding culture over the years and have adopted similar celebrations. The Punjabi wedding is characterized by pomp and grandeur and is by no means a solemn and silent affair; A Punjabi wedding is dotted with fun filled rituals, celebrations and parties night after night.  A Mehendi lunch function had a DJ, shenai players, dholak beaters and an Army band all playing by rotation, of course the bloody marys and beer were flowing (and the wedding had not even begun)! The large hearted Punjabis ensure that their weddings are laced with fun, frolic and a carnival tadka. Want to know a bit more, read below:

PRE-WEDDING CEREMONIES

ROKA can be explained as being a pre engagement ceremony attended by both families of the bride and groom. The Roka symbolizes the couple having found their soul mates and an acceptance from both sides of the family to the wedding at hand. This is followed by the SHAGAN which can be liked to the main engagement; here the bride’s family visits the groom’s family with gifts and sweets. The next function to be held is the CHUNNI and now it is the turn of the groom’s family to call on the bride’s parents. The bride is presented with a red sari and chunni and jewellery. There also may be a RING CEREMONY thrown in. Both families are now well introduced and the stage ready for the main functions to begin!

SANGEET

The SANGEET is held individually on both the boy and girls side of the family. In the earlier days, the ladies would sit together and sing bhajans accompanied by the dholki. At the girls end the songs used to jest about the groom and his family and also speak about the bride leaving her family. This has now been replaced to a one evening blast in most cases which is a social warm up to the wedding and is attended my both men and women alike.

The bhajans have been replaced with peppy Punjabi numbers often metted out by a DJ and a dance floor is almost a must. Bhangra dance movements are most common on the floor and the evening normally starts and ends late. Gold and diamonds dazzle on the ladies while the gents flock around the bar. Lately, wedding planners have been planning very different themes for sangeet parties.  The evening is not meant for the faint hearted, be prepared to shout your way through!

MEHENDI

The MEHENDI ceremony is held at the brides place normally a day before the wedding ceremony. A Henna paste is used to paint the brides hand and feet in exquisite designs and patterns. The bride normally would not step out of her parent’s home till the wedding day after Mehendi. The mehendi paste takes on a deep orange colour a day after it is applied.

It is believed that the deeper the colour, the more the in-laws would love their bride. Mehendi is auspicious and represents love and a strong wedded relationship. Other ladies from the family also apply mehendi and don colourful bangles during the ceremony.

WEDDING

The Wedding day is loaded with small ceremonies on both sides through the day. The BATNA function at the grooms end is a fun filled ceremony when all his relatives smear him with haldi. The PAGRI ceremony takes place before the baraat departs to the girl’s home or wedding place with all the grooms’ relatives donning a common headgear. A final pooja called the SEHRA BANDHI is done prior to leaving; this involves decorating the groom with elaborate headgear and covering his face. Many of the grooms sit on a horse before entering the wedding venue. The final approach to the venue is on foot and accompanied by loud dholaks and frenzied dancing by the grooms family and friends. On reaching the entrance of the wedding venue, the MILNI ceremony is conducted where immediate relatives of both the bride and bridegroom exchange garlands and shagan with their counterparts.
The Milni being done, the groom walks towards a special seating area where the bride joins him. They exchange garlands, this mini ceremony being called the JAI MALA and then family and friends give the couple gifts and pose for photographs. The invitees meet the couple and enjoy eating snacks and dinner. While this is on, we approach the actual wedding ceremony called PHERAS which is conducted around a havan kund. The immediate family and the bride and groom sit around the fire while a Hindu priest gets the wedding rites completed while chanting mantras.  The pheras are complete and the wedding legitimized with the bride and groom having walked around the havan kund 7 times.

The VIDAAI is the finale of the wedding ceremonies and signifies the bride leaving her parents for the final time. It is a tearful farewell as she and the groom leave the venue in a decorated car. The brides brother accompanies her to the grooms house after the Vidaai.

But wait, this is still not the end, the bride is now welcomed into her new home by her in-laws doing the SWAGAT ceremony. The following day is the MOOH DIKHAI ceremony where relatives of the groom meet the new bride and give her their blessings and presents. The couple normally also make a final visit to the brides place a day after the wedding.

RECEPTION

The groom’s family invite their friends and relatives to a grand RECEPTION. This is normally a dinner invitation. Those not invited for the earlier functions (the baraat is normally limited to close family and friends) attend and bless the couple. Many wedding planners in India plan exotic Punjabi weddings. If you haven’t been to a Punjabi wedding before, you now know what to expect!

Endless shopping for the impending wedding, constant advice from family and friends on what to do and what not to when you become the member of a new family, financial planning, inviting and entertaining family and friends – can definitely take a toll on you.

A wedding, irrespective of its size and other aspects, is common to implant anxiety and stress in the soon-to-be bride. Grooms too go through their share of stress, as they go about arranging for the pre-wedding parties and the post-wedding arrangements. Remember to relax and have fun during this period of your life.

Here are a few  tips on how you can destress before your wedding:

1. Take some time off to watch the sunset, take a swim, enjoy a stroll in your nearby park, go for a boat cruise, head to your nearby hill station. If you like to chill out with friends, or else, enjoy the solitude.
2. Plan a girls night and go to a club or restaurant and catch up on the girly chats.
3. Pick a book – may be a romantic novel or a novel by your favourite author – always one off the best ways to unwind.
4. Rent a pile of DVD’s. Watch your favourite movies – comedy, romantic, suspense thrillers or action.
5. A massage before the wedding will help you relieve stress and tone up your muscles. Pamper yourself at the spa with the variety of body treatments on offer.
6. Cut down on caffeine and chocolate, as they are known to elevate stress levels. Include more green vegetables in your diet and drink lots of water.
7. Try to practice meditation and yoga to relieve stress. Breathing techniques can be highly beneficial.
8. Spend at least 30 minutes a day on exercise. This can tone your body as well as relieve stress.
9. Most brides are so busy ensuring everything is planned perfectly that they forget to have a good time and end up stressing! Try doing something different like go out for a movie with your girl friends maybe?
10. Get some rest – most brides tend to be busy with their pre-wedding preparations in the days leading up to the wedding. Try and get as much sleep as you can to look your best on your wedding day.
11. Take some time out and spend some quality time with your finance. a wedding usually involves so many people from family to friends, vendors to guests take a walk or plan a romantic dinner – just the two of you.

De-stressing is all about doing the things you enjoy the most and that can make you relax peacefully. Enjoy the pre-wedding time and have fun with the entire wedding planning process. Hope this information from your wedding planner in Mumbai will help you de-stress before your big day!

You can checkout this Sunday’s matrimonial section in the Times of India – Check mate.

Here’s this weeks question – How do you budget yourself for a wedding?

Gone are the days when weddings were those retrograde one-day deals with short ceremonies, followed by mundane, teetotaler buffets. Enter designer clothes, haute couture, international chefs and spirits flown from Italy, theme weddings, week long soirees, special performances by the big-wigs of the entertainment industry, and soaring-high budgets.

More than ever now, Indian weddings have become the epitome of exuberance, flamboyance and grandiosity that cannot be compared to any other nation. Unlike, the West, where parents put aside dough for children’s college fund, in India folks, families and even the bride and groom make sure that money or the lack of it doesn’t come in the way of the D-day.

Yes the wedding industry as of today is a multi-billion dollar industry and one can easily assert that quarter of an average Indian family’s wealth is lavishly spent on weddings. And with over 35% of the Indian population falling under the below 30 years age bracket, it will be no surprise if the list of impending weddings, before the turn of the next decade, crosses the 40 crore mark!

An average wedding budget of an Indian middle-class family ranges somewhere from five to 15 lakhs; and then there are people out there who will set aside that much money exclusively for the selection of wines from around the globe. India, a nation with several cultures, traditions and communities interwoven together, has myriad ways of celebrating weddings. Smaller communities, like the Parsis prefer more simplistic, intimate weddings with a well-edited guest list; whereas Hindus, such as Marwaris, Gujaratis, Punjabis and Sindhis opt for glitzy affairs with a lot of bling quotient.

Where does it commence and where does it end? The truth is, there is no upper-limit to the amount of time, effort and money people are willing to spend on a wedding. It can range from booking the Palais Du Versailles, to flying more than 300 guests to Florence, to having a superstar dancing till the wee hours at your wedding. And things like wearing a Swarovski encrusted outfit and having exotic flower arrangements, which run into lacks are additional frills thrown in for good measure. Even something as grave as the global recession couldn’t shake people or push them into mandatory cost-cutting as far as weddings were concerned.

So how does one go about it? Say, the budget is in place and so are the bride and groom; but how exactly to commence this Herculean process? What is done to death and which shindig will make sure your wedding is the talk of the town? Relax; take a deep breath – Marry Me the Wedding Planner to the rescue. A young, dynamic and highly creative team, Marry Me will turn your dream of the perfect wedding into a multihued reality.

Candice Pereira, the Creative Head of the company, has an education and work background in Hospitality Management in India, Australia and Canada. With a strong penchant for the wedding industry, Candice has traveled the world and organized and executed several high profile weddings and events. She and her invigorating team, who are full of zest and refreshing ideas, will make sure that all your pre-wedding bashes, ceremonies and the actual day are a fantastic mélange of fun, finesse and class.

Raise a toast to your conjugal bliss with MarryMe.

Food, along with music, dance and merriment plays a huge role in the great Indian wedding. It can be a grueling task picking and choosing the food that you wish to serve at your wedding reception. And, before it all comes the big decision of which caterer to choose. Read on to get a clearer idea of how to go about this food dilemma. After all, the big fat Indian wedding is incomplete without a grand gastronomical feast!

Indian Wedding Food Menu

Selecting a Caterer

Firstly, you need to figure out if the location where your wedding reception is being held permits an outside caterer to take care of the wedding’s food. Most 5-star hotels for instance, only allow the wedding catering to be done by an in-house caterer. If so, you will have to sit down with the hotel’s caterer and discuss various food options and menus.

Choice of Appetizers

Finger foods are a great option for starters. Not only are they freshly prepared and served to the wedding guests as soon as they are ready, but they are also suitable for formal and casual weddings alike. When discussing the starter menu with your caterer, make sure you find out how they are priced. Will they be charged on the basis of consumption? (This is a good idea, since you cannot really judge in advance how many starters each of your guests will consume,) or do you plan to stick with a pre-counted number of starters per head?  Kebabs are a good idea, and you can even have a good mix of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. A plate of cheese and crackers on each table is a great idea to keep your guests satisfied while they take a break from the starters that keep coming around.

The Main Course

Do you plan to have a buffet service at your wedding, or will it be a table service with a set meal for everyone. The former option is a great idea, since you get to select a good combination of dishes that will be offered at your wedding. Another extremely important question: will it be a 100% vegetarian menu or a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. If you plan to have a set meal with table service, you will be to know just exactly how many vegetarians plan to attend your wedding. This can get a bit confusing, unless of course your wedding is an all-vegetarian wedding. As we mentioned earlier, a buffet-style menu is a great idea. You can choose to have 2 separate buffet tables, one for the vegetarian dishes and the other for non-vegetarian.  Most caterers also offer a soup in their menus, so have a look at that too. Salads of different kinds add a good balance to the food served in a buffet-style setting.

Rice, bread, and Indian rotis are all a must. Then come the accompaniments like different gravies. Ask your caterer for the different menus that he/she offers. If you want to stick to Indian you can do so. Some like to throw in a bit of different cuisines like Chinese, Italian, Thai etc. We think it’s a good idea to go with one or at the most two different kinds of cuisines. Chinese and Thai food would go well for instance. And, you can get really creative in this case with sushi, sashimi and the likes. However, something like Thai and Indian food; they just don’t go together. It’s also a good idea to have at least 1 dry dish in your main menu such as a continental-style battered fish, which adds a crunchy, but tasty element to the meal as a whole. Surprisingly, this goes really well with an Indian menu!

Also, you can opt for a platter of cold cuts like turkey, proscuito ham, chorizo and salami that are not only delicious but also make for a good presentable dish, if served well on the buffet table.

Just Desserts

In this area too, you can get wildly creative. A small section of the buffet table can be dedicated to desserts if you like. Go crazy with desserts like tiramisu, cheesecakes and fresh fruit mousses. You can even opt for a platter of mini desserts, so that you can incorporate all the favorites such as mini tarts, eclairs and pastries. If you don’t wish to have a dedicated dessert counter, then a set dessert can also be a good option.

It’s not a very difficult to make a decision with regards to the food menu at your wedding. It just requires a good amount of thought, and the assistance of a good wedding planner. After all, no one knows your guests better than you and your spouse to be.

You can checkout this Sunday’s matrimonial section in the Times of India – Check mate.

Here\’s this weeks question – What are the key things to keep in mind when planning a destination wedding?

Marry Me was happy to be part of \”The Wedding Fair\” at Blue Sea, Worli in Mumbai. The exhibition on June 12th 2010, ended up a fun day where we met lots of interesting people. Check out our mini display below. The themed cupcakes as usual got the most attention and we gave out a whole lot of freebies. We look forward to seeing you at the next Wedding Fair – June 18th at The Club.