I am in India right now, “helping” my baby sister with her preparations for her impending nuptuals. This is what a bridal show looks like, Indian style 
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Does this lehnga make my hips look large? |
[Excuse the photoblogging – it’s hard to get the peace and quiet necessary to string two words together around here and the DSL is unreliable to boot.]
UPDATE: The photo above was taken at Frontier (sic) Bazar in Karol Bagh, Delhi. My sister bought none of the lehngas above, they were being shown to somebody else (and most Sikh weddings are done in Salvaar Kameez suits, which is what she bought). She did, however, buy her suit material at Frontier, which she heartily endorses, after having done the tour of most of the South-Ex boutiques (selection is small, and unless you want what is in fashion at that moment you’re out of luck).
i like the middle one best! which one did she pick?
Guys,
There’s a troll here inpersonating me. I’d be grateful if you could please remove the first message on this thread and, at your discretion, trace the source of the offending message and ban them from SM.
Sigh!! Wedding Shopping. What a girl wouldn’t give to go shopping in India. Since I go to the south, all 3 lehangas are gorgeous. Get them all kiddo Have fun shopping and taking pics. Makes us feel part of the family. Keep them coming
besharam! They should be covering their head with the dupatta and looking sad.
ala ‘don’t smile, you’ll ruin the bloody video. Indian brides never smile!’ in ‘Bend it like Beckham’.
Coming from someone who spent months planning her wedding and is still getting used to the anti climax afterwards…I hope your little sister is having a blast!
By the way, do male workers at shops model ‘sherwanis’ etc for the guys too? I was always curious about that..
I just love how Indian guys don’t have the Shame Born Of Machismo when it comes to hard sales. The middle one is my pick as well; a lot of gold, but it doesn’t overwhelm the red.
Indian weddings … sigh …
For. Real. It was over so fast I hardly remember more than a flash of this, a sense of that. You spend months fussing over the food, cake, table decor– and then only get to eat 2 bites of a kofta and wind up starving-hungry at midnight 🙁
I love the picture! I just went shopping for saris and was intrigued by this newfangled “butterfly” sari they were selling so the guy actually wrapped himself all up in it in various ways to show me how to wear it, Bengali style, Gujarati style, etc. Sold! (And sigh what I miss most about shopping in India is the relentless offer of chai/coffee/cold drinks. I wish they did that at Walmart. I get thirsty when I shop.)
Haha! I look at the pictures and wonder whether the Indian Ken and Barbie on steroids are indeed me and my husband. My nuptials were in the afternoon so you can bet that I stuffed my face at night at dinner. Good thing my marriage wasn’t arranged. It’d be so funny if my new in laws saw my appetite. Most brides know that the weeks leading to the event are anything but food gorging events for them. Sigh..the good ol days, when my days were full of hairstyle trials and nail polish shades.
How cool would that be? I’d be shopping all the time! Though Costco and Trader Joes come close to it..with the free samples.
seriously! Our room was decorated with everything BUT food – I would have easily taken some food over hidden alarm clocks going off all night in garbage cans and drawers. Oh, what lovely friends I have.
Ennis ~ you lucky dog! Looks like you’re meeting some gorgeous men on your trip … and you instantly get to see what they’ll look like on the wedding day =)
Sonia –
careful, you don’t want to give our female readers the wrong idea, then you’ll never have the pleasure of planning my wedding 😛
Seriously though, you all are on crack. Like other people’s kids are natural birth control for some, wedding planning is enough to put me off the idea of matrimony altogether. Shudder. Especially all of the craziness associated even with a simple desi wedding.
come come now Ennis… much like your kids analogy, the opposite is so of weddings. Weddings rock, so long as they don’t involve YOUR family in the planning hungama 😉 I can see why Sonia has such excitement for her profession. I enjoyed planning my wedding, immensely, and it was a great time. I’d have enjoyed it more if I were doing it for someone else and thus had zero risk of emotional upset
HI ENNIS- WHAT’S THE NAME OF THAT STORE AND WHICH LEHNGA DID YOU PICK?
Lovely photo. Maybe desi weddings need not be too insane if the number of guests can be kept to a minimum. I know this is not a very small number, but I had about 90 guests and had one 45-minute ceremony. I don’t remember the whole process as being too stressful. I’ve never worn a lehenga (I think that’s what is being shown in the photo?). They look lovely on many girls but I feel clumsy in them. The photo really made me want to wear something elaborate for once in my life…not that I’ll look as pretty as those guys.
oxymoron, my friend. the smallest desi wedding i’ve been to had about 120 people and still involved more than 12 months of hardcore planning!!
also, like payal, would love to know the name of that store! in delhi, you said?
ps: i love the expressions on those guys’ faces. especially the one on the left…solicitiously checking to see if he’s holding the skirt up right!
It’s all about the guy in the middle .. he’s making eye contact and oozing confidence.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAA … simple desi wedding … you’re funny.
Unless he and I elope, i.e. fly to Bali, call the parents on the way and inform the extended family family after, there ain’t no such thing. In fact, what I have just described is a grand dream of mine.
this girl removed and banned them for you. even though she wasn’t included in your parenthetically-enhanced handle. 😉
take comfort in the knowledge that anyone who read that comment knew it couldn’t possibly be you, though i’m sure you were already aware of that. i read it and thought, “ha. ‘A’ for effort, ‘T’ for nice try.”
trolls– impersonate my faves here or on my blog and i will eliminate you with prejudice. poor desidancer…everyone had to suffer the inconsistent, annoying vagaries of TypeKey on my diary when someone kept fronting (poorly, too) like they were you. perhaps you should both be flattered, that people want to be Jai Singh and DesiDancer so badly. 🙂
Is planning just mental for the girl’s family? Since more often then not, they host it? My husband didn’t feel anything through out? The most work he did involved getting his outfit, showing up and smiling for the pictures.
Am going for my wedding shopping next month, Ennis any store recommendatins if you were in Delhi??
I like the one on the right. He reminds me of me..clumsy and scared of the aunties and uncles and the lights. He is the classic example of a docile, shy and blushing bride to be.
yeah, the one in the middle has the T-step and the aloof-leaning-back thing going on. His mental jukebox is playing “I’m too sexy” as he struts about for the aunties and brides-to-be. I think he’s a professional.
I hope the next time I get put down by a girl it’s as verbose as that.
Maitri described her grand dream. I have one too. It’s to be Delhi’s hottest lengha model. I remember that glorious summer, you know the one between school and uni, when I toured Connaught Place and [insert location of wedding shops], the toast of Delhi’s high scoiety and in constant demand from Sonia and her wedding planning fraternity. The needed a model with vital stats of 34″ 34″ 34″ to appeal to the ‘bookish bride’ market.
(Those aren’t my REAL measurements by the way!)
Oh shit totally relate. I’m abnormal. Not into the big wedding hoopla. A cousins wedding last December in India was a total circus. 1500 people!!! That the groom/bride did not know more than a 100 people was besides the point. It was such a mela. I’ve put 3 weddings together now. Watched people have total mental meltdowns because of the stress. Watched mom and MIL fight and haggle over money and power issues. Watched people spend $50K on a wedding. Watched cakes topple over by kids. Watched ice sculptures melt in 97 degree weather. Yikes. So not my thing. I like the backyard barbeque with close friends and family type affair. Fuck the cake. I want a big pot of Ras Malai and Gulab Jamun.
Haha…Ennis, serioously, we need to know the name of the place. The next time I’m in Delhi dragged into shopping expeditions with mom, I’ll take a printout with me and go over congratulate this guy who seems to be the top lehenga model round here.
South Ex — BongBreaker, that’s where Delhi shops. Or atleast the section that shops anyways. There are stores where you need to have multiple credit cards since you cannot possibly charge it all onto one card.
That’s what I’m saying. On the other hand, I finally resigned myself to the 8000 invitations and figured, why not let all the aunties and uncles come– they can clear out all the expensive shite from Crate & Barrel on our registry. I’ll then take said high-dollar household gadgets etc, and have a party for my friends… Voila! But honestly, desi weddings are far more for the parents than for the couple. For the parents, the wedding is the be-all-end-all, whereas for the couple and their friends, it’s more of a kick-off party to the fun part. or at least it should be.
And as Mr. DesiDancer said of the wedding, “see, now EVERYBODY knows we’re having sex.”
I love this site..thanks people…nice sarees btw
nice photos..but where is cicatrix?
And now that they know that, they have the great responsibility of making sure you’re going to deliver children ASAP =)
the two guys on the left are doing very well in the business – the attitude, the coifs, the shirts suggest they are at very much at ease doing this – likely because there’s a hefty chunk of change at the end of the day – salespersons in the retail business are a dime a dozen and very replaceable and dont make that much – these two dont commute on scooters or public transit unlike the flunky on the far right – there is some physical similarity – they could even be brothers and sons/nephews of the owner(s) of the shop – so dont be mocking them so easy – if they own the shop with the ambience and the cachet offerings – they’re probably worth a mill in usd each and are sashaying all the way to the bank singing hail lakshmi all the way
well ennis, wouldnt mind your fb! am i close?
come on people..the dude in the middle with the elvis hair-do is getting all the love here. what about our man on the right?!?!? the true indian male prototype. he could be your neighborhood “chaiwalla”, “paanwaala”, “doodhwaala”, “babu”, “clurk” (clerk), whatever…..
Mock all you want brown folks. Its our unalienable right. 😉
No they generally have a area where you can wear it and walk in a studio. Very nice.
Love it! You just got the photo i wanted to get when i went shopping in pakistan for my wedding stuff…our guys did even better, they put the dubutta on their heads, head down, arms out with the skirt tucked in..i was dying trying not to lauhg!!!!
ennis, is that store in new delhi? and if it is is it called CT plaza
gosh…..the pic has sent me reeling back into a PTSD anxeity attack that i thought i had completely outgrown…….terminal boredom in those childhood days was being pulled along by my over-excited mom into stores exactly like this to witness acts exactly like these…!!
i can almost hear the store-speak
“ikdum A-1 piece hai madam”. ” ye chandni style hai ji, jusht like sridevi in the phillum” ” fres fasson from london, NRI’j me bahut popoolar hai.”
wow…..we got hitched via justice of the pieces, we’re still waiting for our actual ceremony. i wonder if mums will be taking us to CT plaza when we get to delhi. i can’t wait till the begi celebration. and till somoen’s back heals. 😉 ayehoo…..that pic is awesome. fun and awesome. as long as they don’t decide to model cholis too. that’s just scary.
new delhi, excuse me. 😉
Anna,
Thank you very much for sorting out the problem and also for your kind words — greatly appreciated. Strange that someone would have attempted to pull that kind of stupid stunt with me, though — as far as I know, I haven’t seriously clashed with anyone here on SM, although I expect the jihadist/caliphate type might have a problem with me or some of the comments I’ve occasionally made on that front.
Yes — “Jai Singh: The man other guys want to be, and the man women want to…..tie a rakhee on.”
Okay, I made the second part up. I was pretending to be Bong Breaker.
Msichana & DesiDancer,
Jai sits on his hands and struggles not to type one of the dozens of badmaash responses flashing through his mind…..
It’s Friday Jai! Don’t hold back…who knows, you might even mess up your chances of a fab 55 if you continue sitting on your hands!
…won’t the real Jai Singh please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?
This really cracked me up nonfixedaddress! This skinny indian girl with a very cockney accent tried to sell me a saree in Leichester in the UK a few years ago. ‘this saree is simillar to Kajol’s in K3G, innit?’ I didn’t buy it then. But I know now…if only they had stud models like this there..
Man, it’s so funny to see guys in Bangladesh selling women’s clothing. Sometimes these same guys wear nail polish, which makes me wonder about their sexual orientation…
Msichana & DesiDancer,
You two ladies are still giving me far too much material for racy jokes. Please don’t encourage me 😉
Hasan,
You can see that in some parts of India too, along with one or two very long (painted) nails on one hand. I’ve wondered if it’s just some harmless self-decoration fashion-thing, or if it’s actually some kind of secret signal.
No wonder…I have seen some men grow the nail on their pinkie finger and paint it too. I used to wonder what that was about. Someone once told me that it was to pick between teeth etc…nasty!
Then again, I hear that men in that continent don’t balk at holding hands and hugging each other regularly. I guess it’s a cultural thing.
Quack quack
Wow, so it turns out what unites us is the cross-dressing salesmen ?
I wonder if that’ll convince the haters naysayers on this thread.
oops.. make that “
haters“.[No time or privacy so super tersely] Frontier (sic) Bazar in Karol Bagh (Nor Carroll Gardens) – they have a webpage. Those weren’t being modelled for us, so I don’t know which ones were chosen. Oh shoot – relatives decending … wedding is nigh …
You two ladies are still giving me far too much material for racy jokes. Please don’t encourage me 😉
consider yourself being encouraged!
hey, ennis, you sound like you’ve almost time to breathe!
Pattie Kaur,
I’d better not…..Badmaashi has its limits 😉