Preparation

One of the fist things you start doing when you learn you will be living in a new place is mentally making a list of the things you want to see and experience there. For me, Carnaval was the experience I looked forward to in Rio - check - and when I knew I was coming to India it was attending an Indian wedding. Today I get to check that one off the list.

A friend from work invited me to her wedding and I've been dying with excitement ever since. I missed the big days long celebration last weekend in Calcutta thanks to work commitments, but she is having a celebration in Delhi tonight and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

I feel like I've been preparing for weeks just to be a guest, so you can imagine what it is like for the families hosting the weddings. They literally save for years and it is common for them to throw a four day celebration - and I don't mean a couple of hours on each of the four days - the celebration starts in the morning and keeps on going till the wee hours of the next morning. Weddings here are filled with family, music, food and rich tradition.
My preparations started with finding something to wear. All I have with me are work clothes - and to be honest nothing in my closet at home is fancy enough to attend a wedding here anyway. So I started asking around and found a designer. I went to her shop and she helped me find a compromise between Indian fashion and my more comfortable western style clothes (even the thought of trying to keep a saree on in public scares me!) I settled on a salwar kameez covered by a long jacket. A salwar kameez is a long tunic type top over a pair of pants which fit tightly around the ankles (the pants are very long so the are worn scrunched around the ankles. My salwar kameez is a soft gold color. The jacket is made of red and gold silk with a velvet collar and blinged out sleeves. The jacket more closely resembles something a man would have worn in India years ago, but it has been modified to make it more feminine.


Once I settled on clothing I hit the mall last weekend for accessories. It wasn't an easy shopping trip, since it was Valentine's Day in Delhi, which for some reason resulted in a VERY crowded mall. But eventually, I found a sparkly pair of sandals with a heel low enough to be comfortable, beautiful and sparkly earrings and gorgeous ring.


This morning I went to the salon and got a mani/pedi and even tracked down some rollers so I can attempt to do something with my hair - cross your fingers for me. I even splurged and bought some eye liner (something I rarely bother with) so I wouldn't be the only woman at the wedding without it.

Now it's time to relax for a few hours before the real preparations begin. I have to say again, if it is this must work to be a guest at a wedding here, I'm glad I'm not the bride!

In honor of the bet I won last night for knowing that Careless Whisper was from George Michael's Wham days rather than his solo career here's a look back in time and the very cheesy music video:

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