Tyee and I had our dream wedding in Newport Beach, CA. The whole weekend we combined our cultures and celebrated our unity and love. Traditionally, bridal Mehndi (henna) is done a few days before the wedding day, but because almost all of our guests (and our entire wedding party) were flying in from out of state, we had a certain number of days to work with. We held my Mehndi Night the day before our wedding and it worked out just fine! 🙂 We had a beautiful beach house that we rented for the weekend and for our wedding party. Everyone joined us there for my fun Mehndi Night. Nearly all the guests who were attending our wedding attended the night before as well. We had a full house! (I actually met neighbors whom I didn’t know and who were invited to join too by the family lol. They seemed to be having a great time XD)

On one side of the beach house I was getting my beautiful bridal henna done by Sabrina Gaur (https://www.instagram.com/sghennaartist). Followed by my bridesmaids getting theirs. We had Bollywood music and snacks while friends were hanging out and as many more arrived they all came to the “Mehndi side” to say hello and see me. Everyone was chatting, laughing together and enjoying the cultural experience. Most of the guys were over with the groom and groomsmen hanging out, having a good time watching the UFC fights, enjoying the “Testosterone side” on that part of the house lol. After the henna designs were done, both sides of the house joined together, and we all had even more fun! There was food, drinks, snacks, music, TV, so many laughs and people mingling. It was definitely a great ice-breaker for everyone that didn’t know each other as most of the guests flew in from all over the nation.

I’ll never forget how much I enjoyed that night, surrounded by my family and friends, seeing my family and my in-laws get along so well and genuinely enjoying each other’s company, everyone having a great time, getting the Mehndi I had always wanted for my wedding, seeing how happy Tyee was, my mom’s smiles, my dad’s smiles, my bridesmaids’ excitement and how much joy there was in the air – just made me all the more excited for the next day! Our Big Day! ❤

Tip #1: If you’re like us and have most of your guests coming from out of state/country, try to hold a pre-wedding event (mehndi night, rehearsal dinner, haldi ceremony, sangeet, etc) beforehand so that everyone can get to know each other and feel more comfortable by the wedding day. This is a great ice breaker and allows everyone to really enjoy partying with one-another during the actual wedding celebration. For Indian weddings, we have a number of fun pre-wedding get-togethers. For many western weddings, there is the rehearsal dinner. For fusion weddings (like ours), you have so many options! Create your own combination – most people love experiencing new cultures.

Tip #2: Have food that everyone likes or some foods that everyone’s familiar with. Have a variety. Not only may some people have dietary restrictions but if you have foods that not everyone is familiar with they may not want to eat it. You want everyone fed and happy at your event 🙂

Tip #3: Have something for everyone to do and engage in. Try your best to plan things where everyone can engage at some point and join together in the process. At your Mehndi you’ll be kinda tied up (having no hands and feet available n’ all.. lol) so you want to already have planned things to keep your guests from getting bored. At my Mehndi, my henna artist was available to do some guests henna after she was done doing mine and my bridesmaids. I also had brought pretty, golden press-on temporary tattoos to go with the “henna theme.” And, during the fun tradition of the artist hiding the groom’s name in my Mehndi designs I involved everyone in the room with me to help find his name. So many got really into it and determined to find his hidden name! We even ended up involving people on the other side of the house showing them and seeing if they could find it 🙂

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Tip #4: Delegate tasks. The people close to you will always want to help you out. On your Mehndi you’ll definitely need the extra help! My older brother was a big help on this day for sure! He helped me with handling everything from greeting guests, food arrangements, and making sure everything went as I planned. Once the party gets going some things will just flow (if you planned it right), but starting off especially, it’s great to have help. My Maid of Honor was there to fulfill any requests I had or help I needed, my younger brother helped me with checking in with guests to make sure all was good and everyone was happy, and I had help from the wives of friends who were periodically asking me if there was anything they could do. It was all a great help. Someone like me who is a planner and is the one who usually takes on all the responsibilities in coordinating events will have an itch inside to do it all themselves, but delegating tasks to those you trust and having extra help will only allow you to enjoy your beautiful Mehndi ceremony more.

Tip #5: Keep traditions. Traditions are beautiful and fun. Especially when you are combining cultures you can introduce some lovely traditions you were brought up with or show how proud you are of your heritage to others that are excited to be a part of it. If you’re planning something like us where it’s more of a fusion, try to still keep some meaningful traditions. I was so glad I did. There have always been certain Indian things I wanted and envisioned for my wedding. I made sure to make those things happen and to keep my culture very much alive during all our celebrations. It’s definitely a big part of who I am and something I’m proud to share.

My Mehndi Night went just as I wanted it to and I was so happy to see how much fun everyone had. Here’s some more moments from the night 🙂

Thank you to photographer, John Merrill, for capturing these beautiful moments for us! ❤

Our Wedding Day Highlights blog post coming soon! 😀