| Compared to most traditional Indian weddings, ours was quite humble and very intimate. I definitely missed having my near and dear ones there that could not make it to India. However, the day was phenomenal. We had a beautiful and quaint ceremony, with roughly 150 guests. Most were immediate family or very close friends. We were married on Saturday September 6, 2014 and our wedding reception was two days later. Our wedding ceremony was held in Jalandhar, Punjab and our reception was in Faridabad (a suburb of Delhi) where Maneesh's family is from (8 hours away). Maneesh arrived in India in the beginning of August and I followed two weeks later with my mom, grandma and Harpreet (my sister-in-law). We landed in Delhi on a Wednesday morning. Maneesh and his family were at the airport to warmly greet us and take us to our hotel. Without wasting much time, we bathed, grabbed lunch and hit the ground running to get our wedding shopping started. By late afternoon we were in popular Karol Bagh looking at wedding dresses. The temperature outside was close to an unbearable 40 degrees celsius. However we had less than two weeks until the wedding and we were troopers! Most shops were air conditioned as were our vehicles, but the moment you stepped outside to run into a boutique you were hit with a wave of blazing heat. We were often in and out of the air-conditioned environments, which made us feel a little sick at times. We were sweating all the time. And that's how it was for the next two months. We obviously slept in air conditioned rooms at night, but the AC eventually became irritating as well. It caused a lot of dryness. My skin was starting to feel very chapped and my hair was starting to get fairly dry. When I tried to remedy this issue by using lotions and creams, the heat melted them right off my body (especially my face, and same with sunscreen). I couldn't win either way. We spent the next four days in Delhi frequenting the popular shopping districts that are well known for the bridal industry. In the next couple of days we went from Karol Bagh to Chandni Chowk and to Rajouri Garden. We even got a chance to ride on the Delhi metro, something fairly recent. Very similar to the sky train in Vancouver, and the opposite of the subway in Toronto. The metro in Delhi is lifted off the ground and travels above the city traffic. I finally found both my outfits in Karol Bagh with some nice dresses from Chandni Chowk adding to my ever growing collection. Maneesh wasn't so lucky with his hunt. But surely he found something quite elegant within the next couple weeks. By Sunday I was headed to Punjab with my ladies. Once in Punjab we got straight to work confirming the wedding venues, the caterers, hotel for our guests, wedding invites, videographer/photographer, selecting everyone's wedding attire, parting gifts/pastries/sweets, henna artists, makeup artist and fixing a salon for pre-wedding relaxation and prep, etc.. It was a huge task list we had to pull off in a short while. Similar final preparations were being made on Maneesh's end back in Faridabad as the family also had to organize travel plans. It was an eight hour journey for them to reach the wedding destination. On Friday night, we had a pre wedding celebration. During this time we conducted our official engagement ceremony as well as a couple other pre-wedding customs. After all was said and done, we made it through with flying colours and are extremely happy with how the events turned out. We couldn't have asked for a better day or have had it any other way. It got emotional for us and our families at the peak of our ceremony as the realization set in that this was finally happening. On the left I have shared pictures in the first slide show from our engagement and pre-wedding celebration (night before the wedding) and the second slide show is of our actual wedding day. The final slide show is of our reception. |
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