What is the mehndi function like in your family? Do share yours or your cousins mehndi functions.
In my immediate family the mehndi is a family thing only for the women where the outsiders are the close friends of the girl. The girls side do their mehndi while the boys side do theirs’. No dances are allowed, only dholki & songs. There is photography & video camera but the ‘pardadar’ khawateen are warned in advance. The only guy present is the dulha. Others are either locked up in another room or are there to work/serve.
The tradition changed a little bit at my wedding as my sisters’ couldn’t make it and all the female cousins were also coming from abroad. So it was decided that I will go sit in the mehndi my wife’s family had arranged. Their family tradition was certainly different but I survived. They were singing something bad about me but I couldn’t quiet follow the Punjabi. Later I was told that I acted too uptight. Whatever! My mehndi was the second in my family that was not arranged at our house but in a private hall & the food was catered. All my other siblings and cousins had mehndi in the house with home cooked food, which meant there was a limited number of guests.
These days I have heard of 3-day mahandis & barat like mahndis with a hired mehndi singer with group bhangra dances and so much more.
infact its like a get together for family …(real close relatives)
no dances, no music, no groom coming to attend etc.
we all try to sing ourselves …its more fun coz we know nothing about singing or songs …we prepare titles for all individuals present n sing that
home cooked food …n non stop chatting …no movie cameras allowed …some try to take pics …some don’t bother …no male even from within the family is allowed …its like all girls/women …
n i don’t see it changing …neither do we wish …its soooo much fun this way!!
Sara, there must be something that you guys do ... how about the food?
Also there is a difference depending on where the wedding is being held, in Pakistan or else where. Usually girls tend to insist on having a mehndi like their friends.
And lets not get into the Islamic vs. unIslamic issue here. The thread will quickly turn into a disaster for sure.
we dont have mehndi at all.. instead we have mayuN (the ubtan thing). its usually just close family friends and relatives at home. movie and pictures are allowed though. usually girls and guys (if they know any songs) sing together. dances are allowed as well , but girls usually kick all the guys out first.
Ahmadjee srry dint mean to bring religion into it… well i went to three weddings in pak and they were franky very boring. Actually I shouldn’t say they were boring because if ur a part of it, if ur close to the person getting married then its definitely a lot more fun. But there was none of that dancing or singing thats usually there. Both my cousins were getting married (to diff ppl) so they decided to have the mehndi together…my cousin was doing the dholki thing, but they had to do it quickly before her in laws arrived (not the groom though), which i thot was kinda retarded… in fact i saw a lot of things were really weird, like bride’s not allowed to step out after marriage, or before marriage…gah getting ahead of myself…
I wetn to an American paki wedding in new jersy last summer… it was alright, i’m not close to the bride at all though so it was very boring. but at the mehndi, it was lik ewat u described, singing, dancing, the groom there etc… right before ht eevent the DJ kicked out all the guys (except uh himself)… quite frankly i think it’s stupid to tell the guys to get out and then leave the photographers/videographers, DJs, and waiters there..
Bottom line, i just think weddings are really boring if ur not close to the family… I dont want to do that at my wedding, and when I have a mehndi, I wanna do it with ALLLLLLLL girls, not evne the groom there. I want my mum and friends to have fun, and it wont be videotaped or professionally photographed… I wanna get up and dance and laugh and have fun on MY DAY(s).
In our family its loads of fun. Alot of guests are invited from friends to relatives. Its like what u call a get-together of the whole "khandan". There is this dholki thing and there are dances too. Guys, from the family, i mean cousins are allowed who are just there to help with the work. The dulha is the only one sitting there. Friends of the dulha and out-siders are not allowed in there. There are 'mehndi nachanay' wala dance, dances by young girls and small children and sometimes even by newly married or young couples of the family. Its a whole fun event. The mehndi in our family is one function that is much awaited by everyone. The function is arranged in the house. The food is home-cooked. There are movie- cameras and hundreds of pictures are taken.
As Afia baji said..we also prepare titles or songs for individuals present at the mehndi and sing them. Its so much fun.
We have all different extremes and in-betweeners. There's the anti-mehndi anti-rasam party, there's the let's have a neat and clean mehndi with females only party, and then there's the wild, raucous, party who have mehndis in hotels and practise 50 dances 6 months prior to the wedding. :D
i dont know ahmedjee, ubtan is suppose to be a great exfoliator for skin. its yellowish in colour n smells great. dont know about the gori part. girls in my family are pretty fair already.. i just think its an excuse to get together and do some halla gulla (ubtan khail, where everyone tries to smack ubtan on each other faces or in other weird places :D ) oh and to eat loads n loads of mithais :D
and it starts a week before the wedding or sometimes even 2 days before the wedding.
wow, our mehndis are awesome! Actually in our family, the groom’s side of the family takes mehndi to the bride’s house. There’s a lot of singing and dancing and dhol bajaaing. And then when everybody gets extremely tired and sleepy thats when we depart from the bride’s house. That is ofcourse if the distance between teh two houses isnt much. Which was the case in my uncle’s wedding. We werent gonna drive 6 hours to take mehndi to the bride’s house and then drive back home and go back the next day with the baraat
So we just had a mehndi at our house. There werent a lot of people but my nanhiyaal is pretty big so even with the closest relatives it was a lot of people. We have a lot of dancing and singing and dhol bajaaing. Everybody dances, from young to old, girls an guys. Ofcourse, not all guys are allowed. But thats with all of our ceremonies. And we have fireworks too
our family mehndi's are also awesome....our family here in GTA is huge, and we have to invite all of them...but we always get a hall that can be divided...so men in one side and women int he other side....usually the groom makes his entrance on the ladies side, and the sisters put mehndi on him (also his really close male family members/ friends join him..also with the best bud)..., so anyways, we make our entrances with our trays, do a few rounds of luddi, and put mehndi on him....then he leaves (sometimes the groom stays..all depends on the family)..and the bride enters...then same thing again...guys side bring mehndi , does luddi and puts on mehndi on the girl....then we have this thing called GHAROLI...does anyone else have this?? its when the groom's bhabhi puts this matka thing on her head and us girls do luddi around her....then her inlaws (grooms parents), give her some money or gold and take the matka off her....if the groom does not have a bhabhi, then his mamoo's wife does it....
so anywyas, after thats done, the guys and camera guy go on the guys side...and us ladies dance dacne and dance some more....we sing some songs, but hardly no one knows the whole songs....this time i made a song book...came in handy!
also when making fun of the guys/girls side, we usually make a cd and mix different hindi songs to make fun of certain family members and act/dance it out....its really funny! (have u watched hum saat saat hain....something like that....)
