A Perfect Wedding Lehenga is a matter of pride for the Bride

People who are Bollywood fans would remember an Alia Bhat movie called Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania. In the movie Alia Bhat starts a journey in search of a perfect Wedding Lehenga and on her way meets Varun Dhawan. No prize for guessing what happens further. Well, she not only gets the lehenga but also the groom.

Life for an Indian bride is not that easy. The real challenge starts when she  decides to settle with her perfect life partner. And no it’s not the selection of the wedding venue or finalising the guest list. Those mundane jobs are to be taken care of by her parents. Her single point agenda is to get the perfect wedding lehenga. On the other hand adding fuel to the fire are her friends who want a daily update on what kind of lehenga she will wear.

The situation of an Indian bride’s father is similar to that of actor Balraj Sahni in films. He gets a shocker of his life after he discovers the price of a wedding lehenga. A wedding lehenga for Rs 5 lakh. That is 10% of a middle-income group family’s budget for the entire wedding. As a result he finds himself in a delicate situation. On one hand is his favourite daughter and on the other a wedding lehenga for Rs 5 lakh. Knowing it will be difficult for him to convince his daughter he tries convincing his wife that the budget of lehenga should not cross more than Rs 1 lakh. Investing that kind of money for a limited occasion wear is sheer stupidity. The wife tells him that the starting price of a decent bridal wedding lehenga is Rs 1 lakh.

The search for a wedding lehenga is like a mirage

A bride’s biggest dream is that of garlanding the groom on a stage in a wedding lehenga of her choice. To fulfill her dream she has to work very hard and that is finding the perfect wedding lehenga. Adding to the confusion of the bride is the unlimited choice in lehengas. The types of lehenga are myriad. There is Gota Patti, Mirror work, Zardozi, Embroided, Brocade, Benarasi, Kanjivaram and so on. While going for the selection of a wedding lehenga there are two clubs from which she can make a choice.

The Wedding Lehenga Designer Club

The first club is an exclusive club of fashion designers like Anita Dongre, Ritu Kumar, Sabyasachi. The club has few more exclusive names like Shantanu and Nikhil, Rohit Bal, Manish Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani. The designer club bridal lehenga adds up to the oomph factor of the wedding. However it also adds to the bottom-line of wedding expenses.

Check Anita Dongre’s collection:

https://www.anitadongre.com/shop/woman/indian-wear/lehengas.html

The Retail Club

On the other side, the retail club also has some big outlets in Delhi’s most famous Dilli-6 i.e. Chandini Chowk. The names are quite renowned like Ram Kishan Sarees, Kala Shree, Chhabra 555, Asiana Couture, etc. Then you have South Extension, another hub in Delhi with outlets like Frontier Raas, Heritage, and Meena Bazaar. There are also some well-known markets for bridal wear like Karol Bagh and Connaught Place. (The outlets mentioned by the author are all in Delhi as he is based in the city of Mughals).

And last but not least there is Shahpur Jat in South Delhi near the Asiad Village complex. It is a hub for upcoming as well as established fashion designers.

Check Asiana Couture online:

https://www.asianacouture.com/

The Search comes to an end

Finally, the bride settles on the outlet from where she will buy the lehenga and lands up with her mother and friend. A charged-up salesperson full of energy comes to their rescue with a decent opening question. What is the occasion? The moment he comes to know it’s a bridal lehenga for a wedding, his smile doubles. He can sense his monthly sales target getting achieved. His next obvious question is what type with a subtle inbuilt question of budget?

Indian middle class always acts cautiously. If they have a budget of Rs 1 lakh to buy they will start with Rs 50000. Realising that the budget is only for the starting line-up, he loses interest and puts his junior to attend to the family. The bride settles for a wedding lehenga just exceeding the budget by 20%. The date of the trial and date of delivery are fixed however with a gestation period of 2 months.

The Wedding Lehenga gets delivered

The Lehenga finally reaches home. The father is flummoxed seeing the size of the parcel. It looks equivalent to 2 big suitcases of Samsonite. The wife explains that the wedding lehenga has something called Can-Can underneath.  Can-Can is an amazing mesh of net that gives the wedding lehenga pretty Disney-like look.Can-Can is essentially made up of net. A large quantity of net is stitched together to form bunches, which is then added in layers under the lehenga’s skirt.

The D-day arrives

The bride gets dressed in the lehenga. She looks stunning as she walks to the ramp for the Jaimaal. One can see the father trying to hold his tears. He stands in complete disbelief seeing his daughter looking so beautiful. The wedding lehenga has added to the glam quotient of his daughter. The female audience is standing in envy. The mom of a guest family at a wedding, whose daughter recently got engaged, has already started inquiring about the shop from where the lehenga was purchased.

The Wedding is over and the family is back to routine

An average Indian household is always large-hearted and has a lot of space for any guests. The only thing they are short is in space. The question is where to store the lehenga with limited storage space. And mind it, I am not talking about the bride’s lehenga but her mother’s wedding lehenga.

The package containing the lehenga is difficult to store in any normal suitcase as there is always a risk of the can can getting crushed. All the upper shelves of wardrobes are already stocked to the full so much that the stored suitcases are unable to breathe fresh air.

There is some space in the husband’s cupboard but the rules are very clear. The couple (brides parents) will never encroach on each other’s territory. Finally, the only space one could make out for the lehenga was on top of the wooden cupboard in the bedroom.

Packing the Lehenga

Every morning the husband gets up and his eyes get locked with the lehenga package lying on top of the cupboard gathering dust. He just wonders if it will ever get a chance to get out of the package. Finally a day comes when the wife is busy selecting the dresses to wear for an upcoming wedding of his nephew. The husband makes a suggestion. You can wear the lehenga lying packed. For a moment there is complete silence in the room. The husband knows he has pressed the wrong key. Prompt comes the reply! Everybody has already seen it wearing in my daughter’s marriage. How can I wear them again in front of the same guests? And also let me be clear! I am not the bride or bride’s mother.

The husband feeling handicapped has nothing else to do except empathising with the families sitting at the wedding lehenga shop finalising on which one to buy.

You can read more such interesting stories on my blog. Click on the link below:

https://theconartistalok.in/