Marigold Events – Indian Wedding Inspirations, Wedding Lenghas, Invitations, Cake, Decor, Wedding Blog and Website

Today we are featuring beauty tips for all you lovely ladies! We recently interviewed Ashmeen Munjal, renowned make up artist based in India. Ashmeen started working as a make up artist fifteen years ago, and has learned from the very best: Shahnaz Husain, Habib, Nalini Yasmeen, and Cory Walia. She has salons in Delhi and Mumbai, and one slated to open very soon in Dubai. Ashmeen also works with many London based magazines and events. Here is the latest scoop on bridal beauty for you gals!

Skin Care Regimen Before Wedding

Yes, you do need to eat your fruits, and you do need to eat those vegetables. For a glowing skin, Ashmeen recommends white, green, and red colored fruits and veggies. Probiotic yogurt is a great antioxidant and great for skin. A regular diet helps a lot, which means your meals should be timely. Remember to put your sunscreen on a regular basis, and drink plenty of water. While wedding planning can take toll on the best of us, it is important to relax and pamper yourself around the time of your wedding.

First Things First

Every bride wants to have a flawless skin on their wedding day. For that make up base is very important. Ashmeen recommends high definition make up over any other kind, especially for long events. She says the HD make up products, not only make your skin glow and look natural, but it also lasts 8 to 16 hours, depending on the weather. This will definitely make for great pictures on your wedding day.

While bronze bases are very in these days, they should be avoided in bridal make up. Brides should use something that is “Forever and Elegant” not something that is “In Fashion but not Forever”.

Read more »

Hello Lovely Ladies! Wedding Wednesdays just got more interesting on Marigold Events. We get many questions from brides asking for wedding advice. We will be selecting and answering “Question of the week” every Wednesday on Marigold Events. Ask your question by filling out our contact form on the right.

Q. I am having a small Sikh-American wedding in California. My fiance and I are planning our wedding on a budget and want to keep things simple but beautiful. How can I get Indian outfits in the US without spending an exorbitant amount of money? How should I go about selecting a venue? How can I save money on decor? What do most people do with their centerpieces after their wedding? I have looked at different Indian Wedding Invitation websites – is there a catch to them?

A. Dear Bride-to-be: Congratulations on your engagement! Here are some recommendations on how you can have a simple, and elegant wedding within your budget:

Look for Indian Outfits and Jewelry Online

Making a special trip to India or Indian Clothing and Jewelry Stores in the US for wedding shopping does require a higher budget. There are many Indian clothing and jewelry websites which can assist you here.

Here are some reasonably priced websites to order lehengas, sarees and beautiful Indian costume jewelry from*:

Home India: Bridalwear
Your Designer Wear
Utsav Sarees: Lehenga Section
Utsav Sarees: Jewelry Section

*Please note that Marigold Events is not affiliated with any of these websites.

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Venue Selection: Questions to ask

When doing your venue research, it is important to check the following with the venue:

1. Do they allow outside/Indian catering?
Tip: Sometimes venues, like hotels, have Indian catering packages. Ask for them.
2. Can you have an outside decorator? Any special permission needed to install a mandap or for lighting a fire?
3. Does the venue rental cost include event rentals, such as tables, chairs, linen, china, glassware, flatware etc.?
Tip: Event rentals’ costs add up very quickly and will definitely increase your per person cost.
4. Can you bring your own liquor? Will you need a liquor license?
Tip: If your venue does not have arrangements to serve alcohol, and they allow outside alcohol, you can save money on liquor because you pay for what you use. You can always return the unopened bottles and it is not a fixed per person cost. Make sure that your venue does not charge corkage or bottle opening fee.
5. Will you need event insurance?
6. Which vendors will need permits and insurance?
7. Check with the venue if they will provide complimentary cake, centerpieces, votives, champagne toast etc.
Tip: Ask your venue if they will charge a cake-cutting fee.
8. How many hours will you get your venue for? Will that be enough time to do set up and breakdown?
9. If it is an outdoor venue, you should ask about a rain location.

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When doing your venue research, it is important to keep the above questions in mind. Do your budget and cost calculations based on the answers you get.

Decor and Centerpieces on a Budget

If you want to save money on decor and centerpieces, I would suggest that you go for a venue that provides complimentary centerpieces and votives. You can also look into DIY Decor projects. For DIY centerpieces, I would suggest buying flowers from the whole flower stores to save money. Every big city has a wholesale flower market.

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You can reuse some of your wedding decor for your reception as well. At the end of your reception, you can ask your florist to wrap your flowers for your guests to take away. Usually the rentals are taken back by the decorator. For example, if they used a big vase in the centerpiece, they will take it back.

Here is a list of Indian Wedding decor items.

Invitations: Online and DIY

The catch to the online wedding invitations is the shipping cost, which ends up being as much as the invitations. Here are some tips to remember when selecting and ordering your wedding invitations.

If you want to save money on your invitations, you can design your own. Here is DIY tutorial for making your own wedding invitations.

When planning a wedding on a budget, it is very important to stay organized and be on top of your budget. Before I sign off, here are two references for you: Indian Wedding Planning Checklist and Indian Wedding Budget. Good Luck with the planning process!

Congratulations to Shaily, our Holiday Season Giveaway Winner!

Comment #8 (by Shaily) was randomly selected as the winning post:

“Welcome back, Neha! Can’t wait to read about your trip 
and finds!
I highly recommend the bride and groom think about the little aspects of their wedding and how they can incorporate their personalities into it.
My favorite things at our wedding were the things that truly represented us and our off-beat nature: our sock monkey picture book instead of a traditional guest book and our personalized wooden cake topper people custom painted to loosely resemble us.”

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Shaily – Congratulations! What a great tip! Definitely a great way to add personality and personal touch to your wedding. Hope you will enjoy treasuring your memories in this picture frame.

Holding this giveaway was so much fun!

To all my giveaway participants - I, and am sure our readers, really enjoyed reading your creative tips for planning an Indian Wedding.

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Shreya – I agree with you how contrasting colors can add pazazz to a wedding.

Jessi – During weddings, emotions run high and things can get overwhelming. I agree that friends and family come through during these pressing times and one should always ask for help.

Sweta – Mehendi is such a girlie event and I agree with you that chudi, payal and scarf stalls, or even when given as favors, would be a big hit!

Komal – I totally agree with you. A live fortune teller would definitely be a hit at Indian Weddings! It would definitely become a topic of conversation at the party.

Dharma – I loved both of your tips! Again, coming back to personal touch and adding your own personality really makes a wedding special.

Shilpa – Karaoke Mehendi night sounds like a blast! Would love to see that at a Mehendi Event.

Thanks again for participating in the giveaway! We hope to hold many more giveaways in the future.

Planning an Indian Wedding just got easier! When I was planning my wedding, I hunted and hunted for a wedding planning website for South Asians. I was looking for a resource, where the wedding planning tools and forums were customized for Indian brides. Well guess what – now that resource is here. It’s called Indian American Weddings, and has been launched by Neha, owner of Marigold Events & Launching Frog (that’s me!) and Payal, owner of Intell Marketing.

Indian American Weddings began as a vision aspiring to make an Indian Bride’s wedding planning experience easy and enjoyable. The inspiration and ideas have stemmed from Payal and my personal experiences, when we were planning our own weddings and discovered a lack of planning resources for Indian Weddings in the US. We envision brides benefiting from a social network that would enable them to share thoughts and ideas with each other and communicate interactively with vendors.

Indian American Weddings is a unique wedding planning community for engaged couples and their families. It is the first interactive site to enable brides to network with other brides and vendors all over the country. It is, in essence, a virtual wedding expo, where brides can virtually see vendors’ products and services, communicate with them, and network with other brides – all without shelling the expenses of travel or time to a wedding expo.

In addition to the social networking aspect, the website offers to brides and couples all the tools and resources needed to help design, organize and plan the perfect unique Indian Wedding. The word “Indian” is the key – not only do we help you customize your planning to include all the Indian glamor and nuances of an Indian wedding ceremony, but we can also help you customize any other Indian event you may want to include like Engagement Party, Mehendi, Sangeet, etc.

Website’s Highlights for brides:

• Your Personal Profile Page with Photogallery: Create a detailed personalized profile of yourself and your upcoming wedding. Upload photos, and write about yourself. The wedding planning tools are linked to your profile. Your wedding planning research can be accessed by you through your username and secure password from any computer.
• Planning Checklist: Manage your wedding planning tasks and track the important details so you don’t miss a single step.
• Create your Budget: Set up your wedding budget and track all your spending to keep your wedding expenses in line.
• Create your Guestlist: It’s a Guest Database! Manage Guests, input their addresses, track Guest info (invitations, RSVPs, gifts, seating, thank you’s) – all with our Guest List Manager.
• Appointment Book: A handy tool to record all your appointments and reminders so you are perfectly scheduled for each day of your wedding planning
• Create Events and Invitations: Send out your save the dates for each of your wedding events with a click of the button and manage the RSVP’s from here.
• Planning Calendar: Your wedding planning is a calendar view and organizes all your appointments, upcoming events and due checklist items in one place.
• Research Binder: Your Wedding Planning Notebook where you can save notes, links, images of products and services you are considering but haven’t yet finalized.
• Guestbook: Post on your buddies’ walls and keep them up to date with your wedding planning. Post on a vendors wall to make inquiries or contacts.
• Get advice from other brides on the forum: Network with other brides, share tips and ideas, post questions. It’s amazing how much you can learn and share with others just like you.
• Add buddies: Friend other members of the site and them to your buddylist. See where other brides are in their planning process. Look at the profiles of your bride and vendor friends, check out their photogallery and write on their guestbooks.

There is a plethora of Indian vendors offering products and services to meet the Indian wedding market needs, however, they have always competed with families traveling to India to fulfill these needs. To these vendors, we offer a revolutionary new channel to market their products and services to a targeted customer base and form affiliations with other vendors in the business.

Website’s Highlights for Vendors:

• Free Business Page and Listing: Design your personalized business page highlighting your products & services and offering exclusive promotions and sales.
• Guestbook: Post on your buddies’ walls and keep them up to date with your services.
• Photogallery: A picture is worth a thousand words. Showcase your products and services with a collection of photos and images.
• Appointment Book: A handy calendar with customer appointments and reminders so you are perfectly scheduled for each day.
• Planning Calendar: View all your appointments in a calendar view.
• Manage Clients: A client database that manages client names, profiles, addresses, interests.
• Interact with other brides on forum: An Online vendor expo – interact with brides interested in your products and services. Make customer contact online!

The website has been beta launched, and we would really appreciate your feedback!

While you want your wedding shoes to be gorgeous, you also have to be practical. You will be wearing them for a really long time and you have to make sure that they are comfortable. Jewels on wedding shoes look gorgeous, and you can achieve a good combination of gorgeous and comfort. If you want comfort, then you can go for shoes which have jewels on the center or side, as opposed to all over. There are many options to choose from. Here are some inspiration boards which can spark some ideas when selecting the perfect pair of shoes for your wedding day.

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