The Gujju tam bram mish mash!

I am just back from a 4 day trip to Bombay. We had gone to be a part of my cousin, Meghna and Chitrang's big wedding celebrations. Boy. Big is an understatement. There were about 5 different events, each grander than the other. Not that I am complaining 'coz I absolutely love weddings. Believe it or not but the preparation for this wedding began way back in February 2013. We had booked flight tickets back then and were looking forward to it since. Lol! Hopeless we are!! But this was a great way for the rest of the family to catch up with each other, to relax and to generally have a good time. Not to mention a perfect excuse to get a few things done - lets see I cut and smoothened my hair(Studio Profile again!), bought 2 sets of anarkalis, bought a ton of makeup and just generally went crazy. Before you get judgemental on me, let me tell you my mom and aunts were no better. They also went to the parlor, got their hair done, bought anarkalis and dyed their hair, painted their nails etc. Even a sober person like Geetha got her hair straightened.. so that is the kind of pre departure preparation that happened for Meghna's wedding. Lol! My cousins and I also created this group chat on Whatsapp and kept buzzing each other on what we were going to wear, what we were going to do and were just so excited. I wish I could relive those moments, so much fun!!

Day 1 - We reached around 5 pm in the evening and checked into ITC Grand Central at Parel. Yup. You heard me right. I told you it was called the "wedding of the year". We were right up in the 15th floor with a fabulous view. The first event was the Sangeet cum Cocktails evening at Blue Sea, in Worli. A lovely venue and a super fun evening with a live DJ. First up there were family dances which were too cute to be true. Uma aunty and Vinay uncle were such live wires on stage it was so cute to watch them. Then of course the dance floor opened up and we all generally went a little crazy! Pics from night 1 - 

Day 2 was the Tamil style engagement and mehendi ceremony. We all woke up bright and early, hogged a sumptuous breakfast at ITC and got ready to leave to the engagement ceremony. The dress code was Kanjeevaram Sarees, so we all wore our bright and colorful best!

The decor was super pretty and there were lots of stuff happening at the event - first off, we started with some heavy duty dancing to welcome the boy into the mandapam, then we had mehendi, bangle making, bead making, pottery, astrology etc all going on simultaneously plus of course the actual event - the engagement! The couple happily posed for the shutterbugs. Chitrang was a real sport - he wore a veshti, he danced, he sang and was really friendly.

Below is a picture with Lokesh Kapoor - he is the chief wedding planner and was the butt of most of our jokes - some of his nicknames included gundu, radio gundan(coz he was seen walking with the walkie talkie 24/7!) etc. Lol! He was a really nice chap and did a good job with all the organizing. Kudos!

Post the engagement we went back to the room and wanted to crash! We had a grand plan for the evening - My cousins and I - Sne, D, Ashwin, Preeti, K & I were heading to Marine Drive and later to Leopold's for drinks and dinner. It was a real fun evening!! All of us were in "high spirits" and had the time of our lives! Good times. We came back late that night and just crashed.







The next morning we had a late start to the day - We were visiting Chitrang's house for Gujrati lunch and were super excited. K opted out(hence no pics) as he had woken up early in the morning to capture Mumbai. Sample this -

So beautiful!! I wish I had gotten out of bed when K woke me up at 5 am. But it felt like it was sacrilege to wake up that early on a holiday - it is not often that I get to snuggle in the ITC bed. Rotfl! Ok pj.

That evening, we had an event called the "Suron Ki Shaam" which was a nice, musical evening. It got off to a nice start with kids dancing to the "Shree Ganesha deva" song from Agneepath. It was followed by
lilting melodies of the 70's and 80's. Very well sung by all the singers. When we finished dinner and got back to the hotel, it was about 11:30 pm. According to us the night was still young. D, Sne & Ashwin came by our room and we sat there chatting and laughing - Now is perhaps the right time to tell you some fantastic news about Ashwin - he is getting engaged in Feb 2014 and the wedding is in July 2014! We are all majorly excited about the upcoming wedding and to meet his lady love, Mythreyi. More on that later. Anyway coming back to our "after party", Ashwin had bought "stuff" for us which we promptly opened and got into high spirits(yet again!). Conversation flowed freely and around 12:30 we got a call from none other than the bride herself - Ms. Meghna! She wanted to come by our room and have a drink. We all welcomed her and what followed was an hour of good conversation, lots of jokes, family gossip, the couple's story of how they met etc etc etc. It was good fun. After some time, Meghna & Ashwin left the group. The 4 of us went a little mad - We played a song called "Party All night" and danced, giggled, yelled etc etc. My hubby was the nuttiest of them all! Gosh. That night still makes me laugh and laugh. One of the bestest after parties ever! Yes it ended with the 4 of us having ice cream at the coffee shop in ITC(1000 bucks if I'm not wrong) - who cares. It's not everyday that we get to do silly things like this!

Party all night! 

The next morning we woke up quite groggily. It was the wedding day and we had to dress in sarees yet again. Which meant eating an early breakfast. Shucks. We finally got up, dressed and headed out to receive the baarat. Full on dancing in front of ITC. Fun times! Glimpses from their wedding -

The wedding was followed by a super grand reception at night. It was a large open ground with so many different counters of food. My god. My head spins when I think of it! We ate and ate and ate :D The best part of the trip was getting together with my family and especially all my cousins. We were waiting and waiting and waiting for the Bombay trip but finally it was all coming to an end. Boo Hoo.
Did I shop? Don't fall off your chair but no, not really. I bought one pair of chappal at Linking Road, that's about it. Mr. K on the other hand, bought a nice pair of jeans(finally got one which he liked!) and was really happy.

I could go on writing but I shall stop my verbal diarrhea here. Enjoy the pictures. And congratulations again Meghna & Chitrang. God bless!
 I doubt I shall be blogging before the new year.. . I really wanted to wrap my year up properly but no time. Sigh. So on that note, here's wishing you & yours a fabulous 2014 - Party hard on the 31st night and live it up! See you next year, Tada.