Yipee! The favours are settled as well. Cute colourful little containers decorated with mirrorwork and sparkles – can be used as kungkumam (sindoor) holders or jewelry boxes. Incidentally, also Rajasthani (sudden obsession with stuff from there). MIL has a contact who can get it for a very affordable unit price direct from manufacturer, so it’s all good! 😀
The 2nd major booking has been done for the wedding! We’ve already booked the temple hall (Arasakesari Temple). Now we’ve booked the bridal package. We booked it with R. Although the service appears to be less personalized and warm compared to M, I felt that R was alot more professional and definitely didnt try to sweet talk me or hardsell. Plus their package had a coffeetable book style photo album instead of the normal one. I thought that was a nice thing to have, along with a cd of all the shots. R’s package cost $3000 and includes the following:
Not bad at all I think. And with everything being included, it’s definitely less of a headache. Now, I’m left with these:
1) Wedding Hall Decor
2) Invitations
3) Favours (artistic drawing of Radha-Krishna in a borderless glass frame)
4) Food
5) Sarees & Jewellery
6) Bangles for bangle ceremony (I am determined to find non-tacky, non-glass, non-glittery bangles which i will actually want to wear again on normal days)
That’s it! Yay! 😀
Recently, I did my rounds of the top few Indian beauty parlours to find out the going rate for their basic bridal packages. And boy was I shocked. Complete rip-offs. Here are some of the prices for a package with makeup, hairdo, use of basic accessories and saree-tying:
Entrepreneur Value-add Bigshot Hooha R – $500
Direct Rival with Freaky Namecard S – $450
80’s Old is Still Gold M – $450
If you want the latest accessories, there is an additional charge. You need to pay seperately for a trial too, anywhere from $50 to $80.
So all in all, if you want a proper package inclusive of trial, it’s going to cost between $490 to $580. Unbelievable. That’s 5% of my entire wedding budget. It’s going to cost me more than my wedding saree to do my makeup and hair.
These people KNOW you need someone who can tie a saree quickly in a cramped area, and they KNOW your usual candidates for the job will be busy running around carrying platters and cajoling relatives. With this knowledge, they happily charge a rate that works out to about $100 an hour (if they are with you from 5am to 10am or 4pm to 9pm). That makes them better paid than most upper management!
This is one of those things that make me wish it was physically possible to take my head off my shoulders and put it down on a table and do my own hair. I can do everyone’s, but I can’t do my own perfectly without being able to see the back of my head can I??? Though not for a lack of trying. I’m still attempting to devise a way to perfect it. I’ll let you know when I’m done.
Knots and Rings 