Mere yaar ki shaadi thi..

The BFF’s wedding is an event that I have to record on the blog. She got married to R. The two of them had been in a relationship for the past 6 years or so. R, by the way, is her immediate neighbour. They have only a wall separating their homes. Literally! When I was visiting India in 2008, I saw her practically glued to her cell phone, talking to this guy, R. All day and all night. So I asked her if there was anything brewing or if she felt anything for him. Since she is my friend, she denied it vehemently, ofcourse. Mint coaxed her to admit it to us too, but she said we were imagining things. Alright then, we decided to let her be.

As expected, she finally did admit to us (and herself) after a few months. That they were a couple. Like we hadn’t guessed in all this time. She and R were of immense help to us when Mint and I got married. R went on to become a close friend of ours and the four of us hang out together all the time. Years passed and I started bugging them to get married. Yes, I am a very non interfering friend. Ahem. Besides that, the BFF would get bouts of anxiety herself and fake sob with complains like, ‘The whole world is married, I am the only one not married. Mera kya hoga..’.

She and R were in a comfortable spot. Since they were neighbours, both their parents were family friends. They lived next door to each other and had no trouble seeing each other. They had to make no arrangements to ‘meet each other’. It was going well, which is why R was always reluctant when we spoke about marriage. What is the point, he would ask? We practically live together even now. Quite a valid thought, but then the BFF, along with us kept highlighting the benefits of marriage and at one point he decided it was time to take the plunge.

They took a while to tell their respective parents about each other, but once they did, things moved at lightning speed. There was almost no drama, too bad. Mint and I were waiting with our bags of popcorn, but unfortunately we hardly found any entertainment. Such easy acceptance is boring! All they had to do was say it out aloud to the parents and watch everything unveil. Wedding dates were fixed, venues were booked and everything whizzed by. I am finally taking stock of all the happenings.

– A bunch of us girls kidnapped the BFF and drove to Lonavala, where we had rented a bungalow for her bachelorette party. I managed to get a ‘Bride to be’ sash and tiara for her from a party store in Bandra on the very last minute. A good buy, because we used those for a lot of fun pics.

– We played games like ‘flip the cup’ and ‘beer pong’, all of which are wasted on me. I cannot for the life of me indulge in any kind of binge drinking. I am the sole cause for making the team lose. It got so bad at one time, it was mutually decided that I should be lowered to the position of ‘kacha limbu’ (no, I really can’t translate or explain that) and should be allowed to play the games while consuming water instead of beer. And guess what? I *still* couldn’t compete. Bottom line – no bottoms up for me, ever. I can’t chug any liquid at high speed.

– Next up was the sangeet and dance party. It had a Bollywood them. I loved the BFF’s ‘fusion’ outfit for this one. Mint and I danced on, ‘Samne yeh kaun aaya dil main hui halchal‘. We barely had any time to rehearse and I was nervous as hell. Thankfully, it went okay. The moment it got done, we heaved a sigh of relief and geared up to enjoy the rest of the evening.

– The mehendi party happened on the terrace of their building. I ended up having the same amount of mehendi as I did on my own wedding! I didn’t intend having it that way. The lady doing it for me took the liberty herself, and when I glanced down, she had already begun and it was too late to change it. So there I was, having mehendi upto my elbows, almost. That was the side of the palms. For the back (or is it front?), I insisted on having not more than a small circular pattern, thassall.

– While the party was a lot of fun, I must also write about the catastrophic fight I had with the BFF on that day. At some point while the BFF was busy getting her mehendi done, I went looking for Mint. I found him with R and his family. They were laughing hard and seemed to be having a little party of their own. Turned out, they were fooling around, hatching plans of asking the BFF”s dad for dowry with the standard opening line of, ‘Hum aapse ek baat kehna toh bhool hi gaye’. The joking and laughing was making everybody keel over.

– I obviously joined hands and told them I was willing to partner with them in this prank. We started devising big plans and thought of big demands to make together. And all of it got punctured when the BFF realised I was a part of this seemingly horrific joke. She refused to talk to me. Infact, when she saw R talking to me, she refused to talk to him too. No amount of appealing or cajoling worked. She was really mad at me.

– She was that mad, she even refused to look into my eyes when I was smearing her face with turmeric paste the next day during the haldi ceremony. We made up finally later at night when she had showered and calmed down reasonably. I must say thank you to R for helping me with this, haha.

– The actual wedding was a long and tiring affair. Us, that is, the girl’s immediate family and close friends had to be at the wedding hall to welcome the boy’s side in the morning. From then on, there was some ceremony going on right until midnight. I felt really sorry for the BFF and R.

– Finally, in the midst of all the cheering and spraying of rice and flower petals, they were declared married! Since I was on the stage, I ended up having a lot of rice in my hair too. Those of you who asked me, now you know why you see rice grains in my hair in some of the photos.

– The reception was in the evening in an open lawn and with all the fairy lights, it looked lovely. When I saw them standing on the stage and greeting the guests, I smiled to myself. They had overcome a lot of apprehensions and mental hurdles to get to this stage, both literally and figuratively.

– Despite the fact that they were the ones going through all the ceremonies and rituals, we felt terribly exhausted too. Oh there was also some chaos, as there always is at such times. I realised my hair looked too oily and I had to rush to a salon to get a wash in between ceremonies. My sari wouldn’t come right. And so on..

– For those of you who wanted to see my outfits, here are the pics. I reused all the outfits from my own wedding, much to the BFF’s chagrin. She couldn’t believe I wasn’t buying anything new for her wedding. Well, I did want a chance to air out my very expensive wedding clothes and I convinced her I wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this.

The gorgeous BFF and R. I loved this outfit she wore during the sangeet party.

 

This outfit, an orange and gold corset and pink lehenga belongs to the BFF. She wore it at the sangeet party during my wedding and I happened to use it for the sangeet party for her wedding. Life does come a full circle. For Mint, we chose a plain black shirt with trousers..

 

Our outfits during the BFF’s wedding ceremony. I am wearing the sari I wore for my own wedding ceremony. I *heart* it. Mint borrowed my dad’s kurta.

 

The reception outfit is my favourite of the lot. It is a backless halter. My sister wore this during my sangeet party. I told you, ‘reuse’ was the mantra. We had paid the designer a bomb for this one and I am glad we could use it atleast twice.. PS – I am not sure why it looks so crumpled in the pic