Long time no see

I got pretty busy there, getting married and then being married. The whole thing turned out wonderfully. Here are the photos, because I know that's what you really want.

Hair is settled, menu in progress

I went to try out hair salons last weekend while we were in Chicago. Check out the results!


F. and I and all our parents also went to taste the wedding food. Everything turned out exactly the way I had hoped -- this food will be awesome. They did a great job implementing the Indian recipes we gave them, and they came up with some awesome options for the non-Indian half of the menu too. I may have explained this already, but since some of F's family is uncomfortable with non-Indian food -- possibly because they suspect it'll have stealth meat -- and some of my family is uncomfortable with Indian food -- probably because it has not-at-all stealthy spices -- we're offering a mix of styles. There's a fairly traditional Indian entree and a non-Indian entree that will be more familiar to the non-Indian folks (we're thinking something kind of Cuban-ish, with black beans and pico de gallo and stuff). The appetizers split up the same way, and so does the lunchtime buffet we're having at the ceremony. People who want to try both are welcome to, but I think this menu will have something for everyone.

....at least, everyone who likes vegetables. My mom is still concerned that some people will be put off by the all-vegetarian menu, but I think they'll be pleasantly surprised. I bet that if we didn't mention it many people wouldn't notice. To me, it's like worrying that there won't be any hot chocolate at your pool party. Apparently, after tasting the wedding food, my dad said "Wow, I'm really full! I didn't know vegetarian food could be so good!" That's my goal for everybody.

What to do...patta

I've been thinking about how to wear my dupatta and I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out. Check out how Aishwarya wears hers in Jodhaa Akbar:
I think this is nice, except that my blouse is longer and more decorative, so I will probably not drape it across the front. I'll just have it hang straight down from the right shoulder. I like how it tucks in at the waist, though.

There may or may not be a part of the ceremony at the very beginning where my face is covered. (Surprise! It's me!) If we do that part, I'll wear it like this:

Actually, the dupatta in this photo looks a lot like mine -- red, sheer, with little sparklies on it and a heavy-ish border.

Summer fun

One of my favorite things that we did in India was fly kites. Marigolds and Mithai, an Indian wedding blog, gave me the idea that we could have kites at our wedding. It's a fun thing that kids could do during the ceremony so they don't get bored, and people could also fly kites and take some time to enjoy the outdoors in between the ceremony and the reception. Plus, they're terribly pretty.

I've also considered beach balls or maybe sidewalk chalk.

On your mark...

We're leaving for India tomorrow! I'll make sure to take plenty of photos.

Photo Phun

F's family has a tradition where the bride and groom pose for pictures with a wider range of extended family than is usually the case (not just the parents and grandparents -- all the aunts and uncles, the cousins, etc). This can take a long time, so I was thinking of things that might make it a bit more fun, and help us get cooler pictures. I brought this question up to F., and we thought of providing some props for fun posing:

A picture frame
Cowboy hats
Turbans
Space helmets
Giant foam Illini fingers
Feather boas
A multicolored dupatta
Something Chicago-themed -- what is Chicago-themed? Wind?
A giant beach ball

If you have any ideas, post them in the comments!

Cakerpieces

My mom had the bright idea to use smaller (10-person) cakes as centerpieces rather than have one big wedding cake. I like this idea! The flowers in this photo are not the right color and the cakes will probably not be white, but the cakes I imagine would look something like this:


What I like most about this plan is that we can have a few different flavors, so everyone with different dietary needs will be happy. The folks on my mom's side who have gluten allergies can get a gluten-free cake (flourless chocolate, maybe?) and we can also have a vegan cake to satisfy the vegans and the folks on F's side who don't eat eggs. And then we can have a third kind of cake that's just cake.

I have also found out that it's easy to come up with DIY cake stands. That bumps this idea out of the "maybe" column and into the "hell yes we're doing it" column.

We started talking with our contact at the venue about setting up a tasting in February. The ideas we've got for the wedding menu sound absolutely delicious, the decorations will be beautiful, and everyone will be very happy.

coordinated-but-not-matching bridesmaids

I have this plan where my bridesmaids' clothes are coordinated with each other but they don't match. Explaining this idea to people has been difficult, though. Now, after months of waiting, I present for your viewing pleasure: Bridesmaids That Coordinate But Don't Match!

At the ceremony (the bride is in the center):


At the reception (once again the bride in the middle):


For both of these, I tried to pick a style of embellishment and a family of colors that would coordinate well. The top set has more traditional-feeling style elements (zardosi and kundan work, contrasting borders). Most of the outfits have some amount of orange or turquoise in them. For the bottom set I chose mostly single-color outfits that had sheer fabric. Those all happened to have metallic, swirly embellishment. The similarity in style gave me freedom to choose a wider range of colors. FYI, I don't have 10 bridesmaids. I'm just trying to show a lot of options.

everything's coming up Milhouse

F. and I have been in Chicago since Thursday. I was a bridesmaid in a wedding (he also came to it, of course). That kept us busy until Saturday night, but on Sunday my parents visited. F. and his mom and my parents and I spent the day working on wedding stuff, and we got a lot done! I had been starting to wonder if we ever would, so I'm glad we did all this.
F's mom had collected a stack of Indian-style invitations. We looked through them and picked out a couple whose styles we like. My plan is to take those, and some more American-style samples that I liked, with us to India. We'll try to get something between the two styles. That means we need to have all our invitation wording written up before we go. We've got to write the program, too.

We drove out to our ceremony and reception venue to meet with one of their event managers. We talked with her about the schedule on the actual day as well as what kind of a planning schedule we should follow. This was the first time any of the parents had seen the place, and they really liked it. The last time F. and I had been there was in the middle of November. This time we got a chance to check out the garden, too. It looked great! There's a plaza that will be a perfect place to set up the mandap.

Next we checked out some locations for the mehndi party, which my mom is in charge of. Looks like we'll have mine done Friday night (since it will take so long) and the guests can have mehndi done at the actual mehndi party on Saturday at brunchtime. This way I can even do some of it, which will be really fun. There should be time for it to dry before the garba starts Saturday night.

My mom surprised me by saying she was thinking of wearing Indian clothes at the ceremony. This will be so fun! We went back to F's parents' house for dinner, then the moms and I went upstairs to play dress-up. My mom will probably wear a lehenga choli, since she doesn't like the way sari pleats lay on her. Now I'm going to start sending her links so she can check out styles! I'll have to pick out her outfit when F's family and I are in India. What a big responsibility, picking out my mom's clothes.

We also talked with a decorator about the mandap. He showed us all the ugly plastic white ones with lights all over them first, saving the cool wooden one for last. I was starting to get worried, and then he pulled up a photo of it. Its pillars look like peacocks! It's shaped like a clover leaf! I liked it a lot. Just in case the quote's not in our price range, we're going to look for one or two other decorators to compare against. But if we're happy with the price, we'll probably go with this guy.

That was everything we could fit in one day. My parents are driving back to Michigan this morning and I'm taking the train to Champaign for a conference tonight.

So, the next few steps are:

1. Finish the guest list.
2. Get a visa for the India trip.
3. Email the venue and let them know we want to have the ceremony on that round plaza.
   
4. Email our awesome photographer and let her know the date so we can schedule things.
   
5. Buy a printer with which to make save-the-date cards. (We figure that since F. works from home, and we'll probably need to print a ton of wedding stuff, it is worth it to just buy one.) Make save-the-date cards.
6. Decide about the decorator. Put the decorator in touch with the venue so we can decide about hanging things from the ceiling.
7. Take care of little things like a guest book, place cards, a box to put cards in, and all those other details my mom wrote down while we were meeting at the venue. See if we can rent vases from either the venue or the decorator and just put our own flowers in them.

I'm sure there are more things on this list, but that's most of what I can think of that needs to (or can) be done before we leave for India.

wish fulfillment much?

Last night I had a dream that I went shopping and bought a wedding outfit --- and cycling shoes. From the same store!