Mehendi Tales (My Mehendi pictures)

I find it strange that I love applying Mehendi but don't like it on my hands so much that I wouldn't mind  being a mehendiless-bride! All my aunts gasped in horror when I said why do we need to put Mehendi for an engagement? I should have recorded their reaction! They planned to have a proper mehendi function for an ENGAGEMENT. I offered to have a function only for them but they didn't take no for an answer. Me, a poor first time bride started doubting if I was doing a right thing. They talked into me and made me put a full bridal mehendi (upto elbow) for an engagement where all I wanted was french nails. I surrendered on one condition of sparing my legs from the mehendi. They cribbed for some time and then got busy with their mehendi (thankfully!).

Engagement Pic: Was the 3-18 hours spent on mehendi worth it?

Initially, I was having a good time but every passing hour was being difficult. It took 3-4 hours only for the hands. Surprisingly, they say wedding mehendi with dulha (groom), dulhan (bride), baraat, palki, etc etc is EVEN more intricate. By now I was sure about not having any of this for the wedding. It didn't get over with the painful 3 hours. Later, I had to then save the mehendi from getting smudged. The only good memory of that evening is my father feeding me after ages and a friend who couldn't attend the wedding/engagement had come to meet me.

During Wedding..

Mehendi started immediately after haldi. As mentioned in the pre wedding rituals post, I was already wearing the green chuda by now which means, I could only start the mehendi 3 inches above the wrist line (half as long as the engagement). This time, there were even more ladies under the roof. Some of them felt bad for me thinking I would be upset over not getting a baraat on my hands. Little did they know that the chuda was a blessing in disguise for me!

On my legs, I only wanted a circle on the topside of the foot just for the sake of it. The mehendi artist with full support of the ladies tried to convince me to get proper mehendi at least on the legs. But the bridezilla in me didn't budge. I just followed my gut and I am so so so so happy that I did! The minimal mehendi on legs actually looked good. At least I was happy with it.

Some more pics:

Things to remember: I had put mehendi after about 10 years. Next morning on the engagement day, after cleaning up the dried mehendi (Had a tough time!), I observed that my hands were drying out terribly. I had to apply almond oil and then used hand cream all throughout. This resulted into uneven discolouration. So even if you are not a mehendi fan, try it a few months before the wedding to see if it suits you.