Due to the longevity of Anuja and Sanjay’s wedding we will be posting it in parts. As most of you are aware through our Facebook we are just returning from being away in India where we covered Anuja and Sanjay’s wedding events in Kerala, India.
Upon our arriving to the Zuri Hotel on the 20th of January we were able to do a quick walk through with the clients to get an idea of what the days were going to consist of as it was our first time on location at this venue. The wedding consisted of around 70 of the couples closest friends and family and carried over 3 days of festivities.
The day started off with some formal welcoming ceremonies to welcome the families to include the Mehendi party. Leading up to the evening where the Sangeet would allow everyone to not only bless the couple, but be entertained through a little bit of India’s traditional song and dance. This was held in the Amphitheater there at the Zuri Resort.
We cannot recommend with venue enough as the service and quality was top notch and we truly felt welcomed and catered to during our stay. Much love goes to Princy for her patience and endless efforts as she catered to everyone’s needs throughout the stay on the Resort making her more like family to many!
For those eager to know a little background and history of the celebration in traditional India customs:
Weddings in India are considered to be a sacred and sanctified ritual. They are long ritualistic and elaborate affair with lots of pre-wedding, wedding, post wedding ritual. The occasion of Mehendi is one of the most important pre-wedding rituals. It is fun a filled ritual, which is celebrated mainly by the bride’s family. Different regions of the country celebrate the ritual in a different way according to their own marriage customs, rituals, and culture. The celebrations also depend on the wealth and status of the people. The bride’s family celebrates Mehendi party for gathering bride’s friends and relatives for blessing the bride as well as for amusement.
The ceremony is mostly held at bride’s place or sometimes in a banquet hall on the eve of the marriage ceremony or few days before the marriage. On this occasion a professional henna designer or some relative applies mehendi to the bride’s hands and feet. There are few places in India where it is a ritual that the first motif of henna or mehendi is applied by the bride’s sister-in-law whereas there are some places where the first mehendi motif is said to be auspicious if applied by bride’s mother.
The Mehendi or henna motif is not only the adoration of the bride rather it epitomizes her transformation from a virgin girl to a temptress for her husband. As per Kama Sutra, henna is one of the sixty four arts of women. Popular motifs of the bridal mehendi are conchshell, flowers, Kalash, peacock, doli and baraat patterns. The intricate motifs of the bridal henna also hide the husband’s name. It is said that the husband’s name in the intricate henna motifs is made for the groom who has to find out his name in his bride’s mehendi as an evidence of his sharp eyes and active brain to impress his girl.
Mehendi function is usually organized with the sangeet function. So, it has a festive feel to it with the women dancing and singing traditional songs on the mehendi ritual. The bride is dressed in light color clothes with light jewelry. According to the custom the bride must not step out of the house after the mehendi ritual until the wedding day. It is believed that the darker and deeper the henna stains the more the husband and the in-laws will love her bride. The ritual of mehendi signifies the strength and power of love in a marriage so it is regarded good omen for the would-be bride. It is said that the long the bride retains the mehendi, the more auspicious would be her future.
