London Wedding Weekend - Friday

On Friday night we had a family party before the weddings to catch up, perform a Hindu ceremony involving giving jewellery to the bride and the Mendhi!  This post is primarily about my outfit and the Mendhi as I haven't asked permission from the bride & groom and other family members yet to post pictures of them on here so it will just be the usual subjects you see on here who I know don't mind being featured.  Those of you who follow me on twitter will have already seen my outfit but the photos on the blog will be much better quality off the camera.

For this party, the ladies were requested to wear Indian clothing so I had an outfit made in Glasgow near where I work.  Luckily I found the perfect fabric in the sale and they make it to fit according to the design in the picture displayed with the fabric (or however you want it but it's less risky just to copy the design shown!).  Mine was as shown...

I asked for it to be without sleeves and a little shorter (sitting on the knee) so I can wear it again as a dress on its own.  I also had the trousers made plain without the ankle cuffs shown.  I was really pleased with the result (after a few adjustments - when I first tried it on it was massive!)  I also purchased a bindi, bangles, Indian style sandals and wore turquoise nail varnish and eye-liner with a lot of black eye-liner to complete the look.  I also wore my engagement present I received from my In-laws which is a beautiful gold flower necklace inlaid with little round turquoise gems.  It went perfectly with my outfit!

Sandals from Debenhams

Nik's cousin, Jyoti did an excellent job of doing everyone's henna.  I absolutely loved my design and then my Mother in Law let me have a go doing hers!!  So much fun and I was pleased with my east meets west design :)

Shella went first!

My Father-in-law then pointed out I should have had a dragonfly incorporated into my design so asked if he could add one.  He did a very good job of drawing one on my wrist!  :)

I left it on for as long as possible until it was all dried.  Then washed it off with lemon juice and water (apparently the lemon helps it last longer).  The result came out well in the orange design you can see below.

This then developed overnight staining the skin even darker - I was surprised and thrilled when I woke up to this...

It is now starting to fade after 4 days and can apparently last 2 weeks but as it's the palm of my hand I expect it will be washed/rubbed off quicker than that.  I think the dragonfly on my wrist might last longer though!

I will hopefully have time after work to write up the Hindu wedding for tomorrow! SO glad I booked this morning off work but I have to go and get ready now!