What comes to your mind when you think of Parsi weddings?

Dec 16, 2011 Marriage & Wedding Trends

Elegant women dressed in beautiful Garas, Patra ni Machchi and Lagan nu Custard? Bhavna Kohli tells us more, with inputs from Delhi’s ace Wedding Planner Meher Sarid.

Baugs
Most Parsi weddings in Mumbai are conducted in the Baugs followed by a reception at the same venue. The weddings in other states takes place at the Parsi Agyari (Fire temple) compound, where there are dharamshalas attached with boarding and lodging facilities.In Mumbai, the two most popular baugs are the Seth Jeejeebhoy Dadabhoy Baug (commonly known as the Colaba Agiary), Malcom Baug in Jogeshwari and the Allbless Baug at Charni Road.

Decor
Generally Parsi weddings are white weddings, with touches of pale tones of baby pink, pale yellow, pistacchio green etc. The entrance to the venues always has a Toran and Chalk.

The bride enters the wedding space accompanied by the ladies in her family, carrying the Sagaan Ses, the Wedding Ses and the mawa macchi (sweet in the shape of a Fish). The Ses is a huge silver platter, with silver elements which include sprinklers, a cone, a silver paan patta, a silver supari and silver nariyal.

Garas
There is hardly a woman who doesn’t want to own a beautiful Gara and one gets to see the best Garas at Parsi weddings. Unknown to most non-Parsis the bride does not wear a Gara, it is typically the family members and guests who wear Garas! Most brides wear white (as it stands for purity) in French Chantilly lace, with delicate pink sequence work on it. The lady best known for resurrecting garas in Mumbai is Naju Davar and now the business is run by her daughter Farzeen Daver. Ahmedabad’s Dhun Chinoy is also working hard to revive the dying art of hand embroidered Garas. For those seeking more affordable Garas there are stores like Pushpam at Charni Road and Mahavir at Matunga. The Parsi men & the Groom wear the traditional White Dagli with the black topi.

Photograph Courtesy: Khurshed Poonawalla

Lagana Bhonu
How can an article on Parsi weddings be complete without a mention of the delectable meals. While vegetarian food is also served the meal also known as Laganu Bhonu is largely a non-vegetarian affair. The food is served on banana leaves and some of the typical dishes in the meal are Laganu achar (a sweet carrot pickle), saarya/saali wafers, Chicken pulao with masala dal, Patra ni Machchi or saas ni machchi, Sali Boti and Laganu Custard. The popular caterers in the community are Tanaz Godiwalla who is based in Mazagaon, Catering & Allied (Joss) by Farrokh Khambatta, Jimmy Caterers and Bomi Patel. In Delhi, Dhun Bagli is most sought-after for her delectable food, which is home cooked for the largest gatherings. In recent times, there has been a slight departure at select weddings, where even Italian or Thai is served.

Tags: Allbless Baug, Decor, Dhun Bagli, Dhun Chinoy, Garas, Laganu Bhonu, Mahavir, Malcom Baug, Meher Sarid, Naju Davar, Parsi Weddings, Pushpam, Tanaz Godiwalla

Gautam Gambhir’s New Innings

Nov 2, 2011 Celebrity Wedding Pictures

On Saturday last week, we posted a picture of newly-weds cricketer Gautam Gambhir and his bride Natasha Jain. Since then we received many emails enquiring if we’ll posting more pictures. So here are some more photographs of the charming couple and the wedding, courtesy Wedding Planner Meher Sarid who managed the grand yet intimate affair at a farm house in West End Greens, on the Delhi-Gurgaon highway.

The couple at the Sangeet (left), and Wedding (right)

Natasha’s wow lehenga & Gautam’s wedding sherwani were designed by Tarun Tahiliani. The creations for the other family members were designed by Kolkata’s Sabyasachi and Delhi duo Shantanu & Nikhil.

The groom Gautam was escorted by a league of Safa clad bearers carrying Zardozi umbrellas, and he entered the venue on special drum beat music put together by DJ Sunny Sarid. The bride entered the venue under a canopied veil, carried by safa clad bearers and she was accompanied by her brother and sisters, and close friends in a royal procession with special bell chimes music put together by DJ Sunny Sarid.

Roberto Cavalli theme inspired design at the Cocktails

The event and entertainment planning was done by Sound of Music- Meher Sarid, Parvez Akhtar and Sunny Sarid. The elaborate elegant decor was designed and implemented by Meher Sarid and her team members Rhea Malvai, Neha Gupta and Supriyaa Choudhary. The decor was based on a Floral theme and a Fleur-de-lis sequenced motif. All the flowers were imported from London, Thailand & Holland.

The Lounge

The Tent

The dinner spread included Indian, Thai and Continental delicacies specially put together by Meher Sarid and each table had a menu card for personalized service. The celebrities present included Virendra Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh with his parents, Rahul Dravid, Ashish Nehra, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, VVS Laxman, Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta, Rajiv Shukla and Arun Jaitley.

At the after-party DJ Sumit Sethi and DJ Sunny Sarid jammed for the guests and their families and friends.

The couple with cricketer Yuvraj Singh

With Juhi Chawla and her husband Jai Mehta

Behind the scenes

Caterers: Seasons and Nandi Caterers
Photographs: Badal Raja Jain
Fireworks: Israar
Doli: Puneet Sohan Lal
Flower Imports: Amrish
Tenting Support & Theme Implementation: Rama Tent House

Tags: Decor, DJ Sunny Sarid, Gautam Gambhir, Lehenga, Meher Sarid, Natasha Jain, Rama Tent House, wedding, Wedding Photographs, Wedding Planner, West End Farms

Who is The Wedding Planner to Bollywood Superstars?

Nov 22, 2009 Celebrity Wedding Pictures, Wedding People & Planners

Delhi’s top wedding planners Geeta Samuel, Meher Sarid, Vandana Mohan are more in the news vis-a-vis the prominent wedding planners of Mumbai– Aditya Motwane of Percept, Gurlein Manchanda Puri and Martin Da Costa of Seventy. The reason is obvious—while loads of money is spent in Mumbai, Delhiites truly enjoy themselves at the big, fat wedding and their city designers set the trend for bridal wear and wedding décor.

Talking of Mumbai, if we asked you to name one or a few Wedding Planners who cater to Bollywood— can you name even one planner? In all probability your answer is ‘don’t know’. Interesting na, considering that Bollywood weddings get talked about for long. So you’ll remember the designer who did the clothes, the bride’s makeup artist or the mehendiwallih but you won’t know the name of the Wedding Planner. Abhi-Ash, Sanjay-Manyata, Aamir-Kiran, Fardeen-Natasha, Hrithik-Suzanne, Kajol-Devgan, Twinkle-Akshay, Madhuri-Nene— perhaps, none of them even hired the services of a professional wedding planner. They took the help of their friends to put together everything and being networked with event management walas they had plenty of resources on hand.

We don’t know if Shilpa Shetty-Raj Kundra have hired a professional event management agency to manage the affair at Khandala and Grand Hyatt—but the woman who has emerged as Shilpa Shetty’s unofficial Wedding Planner is the hugely ambitious Kiran Bawa—almost unknown in the business and social circuit till a few years ago, the franchisee of VLCC in Mumbai and daughter of the owner of Hotel Bawa International, Kiran shot into the limelight when she teamed up with Shilpa to launch Iosis, the upmarket Spa. Kiran and Shilpa have plans to open many more spas and salons throughout India.

Not only is the wedding being held at Kiran Bawa’s home, Kiran has been Shilpa’s spokesperson too. So here’s the input from Kiran, on Shilpa’s picks and the Spa services for the wedding guests at the wedding venue.

Clothes
Shilpa and Raj both chose Delhi based designers. Shilpa’s clothes are all by Tarun Tahiliani. Raj has chosen Shantanu and Nikhil. At the mehendi Shilpa wore a very un-traditional hot pink Swarovski crystals kaftan. For the sangeet she chose a Anarkali churidar kurta. Her wedding saree is a traditional bunt saree, in burgundy and red. For the reception, she’s wearing a saree which looks more like a gown with as many as eight thousand crystals stitched to it. Raj is wearing a black short sherwani with pants.

Music
Shilpa and Raj danced to Teri Ore from Singh is King and the choreographer for the Sangeet was Ganesh Hegde. Daler Mehendi also performed at the function. A Hawaii-themed mehendi ceremony preceded the sangeet.

Wedding
The Wedding with 150 guests was a mix of Punjabi and Bunt traditions. The sehrabandi, chuda and kalire ceremony was held and Raj arrived in a chariot to the wedding venue. The wedding was solemnized in the traditional style of the Bunt community. Spa and beauty therapists from Kiran’s spas and salons were present to provide massage and styling services to the guests.

Food
The lavish buffet at the wedding comprised Hyderabadi and Awadhi dishes from Mumbai’s A-list caterer- Sanjay Vazirani who runs Foodlink.

Watch this space for more information on the Grand reception for 400 guests at the Grand Hyatt!

Tags: Aditya Motwane, Geeta Samuel, Gurlein Manchanda Puri, Kiran Bawa, Martin Da Costa, Meher Sarid, Raj Kundra, Shilpa Shetty, Vandana Mohan