Who doesn't love a Mela, otherwise known as an Indian carnival.

Filled with colours and crafts, come join us kickstart the wedding weekend by the pool. Think vibrant colours, drapes, floral décor and market stalls.

During the course of the afternoon, we will celebrate two traditional Hindu wedding rituals, the Haldi and Mehndi ceremonies.

Somewhere amongst all the fun, we'll also have the opportunity to enjoy delicious Indian food.

Haldi
The Haldi ceremony is a ritual holy bath also known as pithi ceremony, which is one of the pre-wedding ceremonies in India. Turmeric (haldi), oil and water will be smeared on us by all you lucky people. The mixture is believed to bless the couple before the wedding. The ceremony is traditionally celebrated in yellow, so get your bright garms on in the morning!

Mehndi, or henna-is an ancient form of body art, originating in India and across South Asia and the Middle East. A Mehndi party is the pre-wedding celebration in Hindu and Sikh culture when the bride has the red-orange mehndi "stain" applied to her palms, back of hands, and feet. Typically held the day before the wedding, the event often has a lounge feel, with bright colours everywhere. Traditionally, the bride would celebrate this with the women guests, however, we'll have some lovely mehndi ladies spread across the event covering our lovely guests in (temporary) ink.

There's a reason the party occurs so close to the ceremony: Tradition says the deeper the color of the bride's mehndi, the happier the bride and groom's marriage will be. Designs symbolize various blessings, luck, joy, and love, Nish will have the pleasure of trying to locate his initials hidden somewhere in the intricate patterns on Sammy's arm.

Your hands are likely to be out of use for a couple of hours once you've had the mehndi applied ;)

Bazaar Pool Party

Bright Colours

Summer Garms

Among the many pre-wedding events that occur prior to the Hindu, Punjabi, and Gujurati wedding ceremonies, the Sangeet is where the party starts. The word Sangeet translates to ‘sung together’ from Sanskrit. Traditionally celebrated in the Punjab regions of India, this ceremony has been adopted by many other regions as a form of celebration for the wedding to come. The event is traditionally known to comprise of only female attendees from both sides of the family, however modern times allow for men to join in on the fun too (phew!).

The evening is filled with Bollywood songs and choregraphed dancing, so come prepared. Think cheesy bollywood dancing, snake eyes, patting the dog/twisting the lightbulb ;) We'll be asking our friends and family to get involved and bring your bhangra boots.

In more traditional times, Sangeet would last for 10 days, being celebrated upto the wedding day – however a weekend is all we have, so lets pack 10 days worth of fun into one evening.

A buffet dinner will be on hand to keep the moves going!

Sangeet is traditionally celebrated in traditional attire, however, the main aim of the evening is to be comfortable, as there will be lots of singing and dancing.

The wedding party will be sporting traditionally bright Indian attire, but please don't feel obliged to. Think bright, and comfortable.

Pinterest is great for ideas for what to wear for Sangeets. General gist is kurtas or 'indo-western'  for the gents, kurti's or lehenga's  for the women (more info in Wedding Day)

If you’ve ever watched an Indian wedding movie, you might have wondered about the significance of the merry bunch dancing around a man atop a horse (or a camel, or an elephant or a vintage car)—that, is the baraat.

The groom, decked in traditional Indian finery, is usually seated on a ceremonial horse, elephant or camel as his guests lead the way, dancing their way to the bridal party, who eagerly await the grooms arrival.

We'll be doing it with a slight twist with both sides dancing their way into the wedding ceremony. 

Following on from the baarat, a Jain wedding ceremony awaits the bride and groom.

All will be revealed on the day.

A 3-course sit down dinner, with speeches, live music and dancing to cap the weekend.

For the ladies, lehengas (or ghagra choli, shararas)

For the men, sherwanis or kurtas

Some Pinterest inspiration:

Ladies: https://in.pinterest.com/tanvimittal13/sangeet-lehenga/

Mens: in.pinterest.com/RomaPrasad/sherwanis/

From Udaipur

Buying (or renting) from India itself will be the best and most cost effective option. For those arriving a day or so early, we will post a couple of trusted shops where guests will be able to go and get their outfits tailor made within 24 hours.

Online

Indian based websites that ship to the UK (and will be considerably cheaper) Note you can also have these delivered to the hotel nearer the time if required.

https://www.ethnicplus.in/lehenga-choli (ladies only)

https://www.utsavfashion.com/

There are quite a few UK based websites that sell Indian wedding attire. The below appears to be the best value for money, albeit still far more expensive than what you could expect to pay for in India.

www.mirraw.com/

www.andaazfashion.co.uk/lehenga-choli/partywear

www.sareeka.com/bollywood-lehenga-choli-uk

From the UK

There are plenty of Indian attire shops dotted around East & West London if you fancy venturing to get an idea.