Mother, daughter and a dog

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful family of a hardworking dad, a loving mother and a cheerful daughter.

Life for them is all about being happy and looking for happiness in any situation.

Dad as usual is busy carrying on his daily work.

The mother and the daughter share a special bonding being together and spending time together.
It sounds like a fairy tale till now.
Then something which the god only knows happened to the daughter. She started hating everyone in her life including the mother.

The mother like any other mother showed only love ignoring the hate.
The daughter takes the mother for granted. Thinks that it's mother's  responsibility to show love despite the bad response. The mother still continues to love love and only love.

One day the happy family went on a trip. A street dog kept following them. The daughter who is so mean to the mother was so friendly and starting making friends with the dog. She started caring and loving the dog.

Mother took a deep breath and thought for herself, "I should have at least been that dog to get love from my daughter".

This thought made this person who has been watching everything think..
The mother always wanted the best for her child.
She often warned her against bad company and wrong habits.
She, sometimes became harsh, which she does not want to, just to teach her good.
She pointed the "hard reality and truth" which hurts the daughter.

The only difference between the dog receiving love and the mother not receiving love is that the mother tells the truth and the dog doesn't.

Now it's high time for the daughter to realise whom she wants in her life.
Mother or a dog.

What does and what does not matter - tips for all brides for your big day.

Let me jump directly to the point and will drill to the details later.

On the big wedding day the only thing that matters for a bride or a groom is the countless blessings that the near and dear ones give. So be in the right set of mind to receive them.

And of course, it is your big day so learn to be in the moment and enjoy every bit of it.

Now the details and other blah blah s...

My wedding happened on December 6th 2015. And I wanted to have a very simple wedding but you know, parents don't usually agree to it.
I took only 4 days leave from office for my wedding. And shopped only for ONE day in October.
I didn't have time for the beauty parlor nor arranged for a beautician [because one of my friends is great at it] but she didn't turn up for various reasons.

BUT nevertheless I enjoyed my wedding and always in awe thinking how great it went.

I have had friends telling me that their wedding was a disaster and the reasons sound as silly as their parents were still asleep when she woke up early on the wedding day and so she thinks they didn't care for her. WHAT!!! they were just tired..

So today I wanted to share some tips that I noticed that might help you enjoy your big day.

1. Shopping:
Don't tell me that you are not excited about shopping for clothes and accessories for your wedding. If you are not really excited, gimme a high five. I was not till the last minute.
I shopped all my sarees in just one day in Chennai, just going to 3 shops. I would NOT absolutely recommend this because I have 4 sarees of the same color. This is a general tendency that you like one color on a particular day.

• TRY: Try different colors one fine day and just note down which colors suit you. [I am not mentioning "like" because our likes change] Don't buy now.
• LIST: Come back home, sit with your mom or someone elderly and ask her what occasions happen so that you can plan the number of outfits you need. [In Telugu weddings, some will be gifted by the grooms side, so I spoke to my mother in law too, so that I don't over buy. Over buy - Because we have an unlimited budget, the chance to pick sarees for the first time in life, the pattu/silk ones are really costly and I don't want to buy something and never wear it.]
• SHOP: So now you have the number and colors ready in your hand. Go to a shop and dhanandhan finish your shopping. One or two sarees a day is what I saw worked really well. 
• The irony lies here. In my wedding tradition there is something called "Madhuparakam" which is a saree off white in color with a golden boarder and is hand loomed [looks like the Kerala saree] is to be worn by the bride and groom. How many ever pictures I see, the couple looks real beautiful in this. And you know how much it costed for me?? 400 Rs. No other saree worth tens of thousands gives the bridal look than this.

2. Accessories:
If you could afford the real gold ear rings, bangles, belt [vaddanam], etc etc it is fine. Else the artificial imitation jewelry costs a bomb. 5 to 6 thousand for a vaddanam and others. So just borrow it from some one. Simple. 

3. Itinerary: 

• Invite near and dear ones, only a hand full of them to the wedding. Others can be covered in the reception later on or in the Sangeeth. It is not that we don't want others to come to the wedding, it is because our parents will be too busy in receiving them that they will hardly have anytime to sit in peace and enjoy the wedding. 
• Plan to reach the venue [if it is a hotel] a day before and rest. This suggestion because traffic these days is not so predictable.
• Keep the reception on a day sometime after the wedding. Reasons being: As Chaganti Garu tells, if the reception happens before the wedding, what will the guests bless the couple because without wedding, the bride and groom are not couple yet. So blessing them is not right. But coming to the other reasons, reception is a lot of work and feels like a stress before wedding. Parents still have some stuff to buy and arrange and here comes the reception guests and they will be over tensed to take care of both. I have been to a wedding where they have arranged for reception in the evening at around 5 PM followed by dinner at 7 PM and wedding is to happen at 10 PM. As you might have guessed the guests kept coming till 8:30 PM and the bride had hardly anytime to breath before getting on to the pelli peetalu [to start the wedding formalities]

4. Room for yourself: 

The bride and the groom have to have a separate room to rest for themselves. Our wedding happened in a very nice hotel and the rooms were extra ordinary. But since I got to share it with my parents, which means all the wedding stuff are kept in the room and people keep coming to the room to do the arrangements and the worst part is with some oldies who comfortably occupy the bed and sleep. [no offence meant for the oldies but look at me, I am equally tired and wanting to have a nap for a few minutes and imagine that not happening and how cranky I would be]

So a MUST HAVE RULE. Have a separate room for yourself and rest.

5. Make up and beauty parlor: 

The entire blog post came up because of this one aspect in my wedding.

We changed our plans the last minute and I had to postpone the parlor visiting day. But I realized that once you perform some pooja and made into a bride you are not allowed to step out [in my tradition of wedding] so I had to cancel my appointment all together. So no waxing, no threading, no pedi/manicure. And actually nothing. I came straight from the office and made to sit at home. 

Then comes the mehandi. I love the traditional way of mehandi, so didn't call for a professional mehandi designer and it turned out ugly.

I was very disappointed and started showing it on people and esp my mom. I was not helping her and giving her rash answers, like this, "how does that matter, my mehandi itself isn't good looking" etc etc.

Then she gave me a room, asked me to go sleep there. I was thinking about how rude I was with her and went and started helping her. Later the wedding happened and I was overwhelmed with all the blessings and the love showered by people. 

Then it struck my mind, what matters truly is love and not how my mehandi is. 

I have seen a similar situation with my friend too. She was upset with the make up and the flowers that were used and unnecessarily was shouting on her sister and mother for not arranging stuff properly. And it actually effected her wedding time since she was moody in all her wedding pictures. Now think about this, does this really matter?? 

And you know what the best part is in my wedding, people started complimenting that I was looking beautiful and after a very long time is when they are seeing a bride without makeup. I smiled at myself for being so stupid to shout on my mom.

P.S.:
Things to remember:
1. Be happy and peaceful. Things are going to be fine.
2. No one remembers your saree, your mehandi or the color of the flowers used on your head. So chill.. Things don't go according to the plan and it is okay.
3. Wedding is arranged in a huge way NOT to show off but for the love and blessings of the guests. So be open to receive it and have no hard feelings about anything that happens. Just close your eyes and repeat this to yourself: "The only thing that matters for me today is that I have to enjoy every moment of the day."