Indian Wedding Travel http://www.indianweddingtravel.com Destination weddings for 100-1000 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:40:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Raas Garba: A Sangeet Party! http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/raas-garba-a-sangeet-party/ http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/raas-garba-a-sangeet-party/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:57:27 +0000 admin http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/?p=40 Raas Garba is an Indian dance party, usually taking place before a wedding ceremony. Raas Garba is of Gujarati origin and all the Gujarati weddings are almost incomplete without this dance cum sangeet party. Women usually do this dance, although men are free to participate. Raas Garba is performed in groups, with each group dancing in circles, and performing similar well-coordinated dance steps. The people in the inner circle usually do the harder steps while the dancers in the outermost circle do not have much to do. They perform basic dance steps and clap. The music is really high, so keeps the dancers energized. The genre of the music is such that one cannot resist dancing and hence, everyone has to participate. People are also served with delicious healthy food so that they can keep their energies to the hilt and enjoy themselves well.

The dresses for the dance are usually designed to be comfortable for dancing. Women wear chaniya cholis, colourful skirts and blouses, which are embellished with beautiful embroidery. The dress for men usually compliments women’ dresses: They wear kurta with collar less shirts and tight pants, which are called churidars in the local language. It is also advised to dance in barefoot, as the steps to be performed are complex and cannot be performed well in stilettos or are uncomfortable to be done in high heels. Hence, stockings and shoes is not a worry. But make sure that you do not wear socks on the dance floor as this might cause you to slip on the dance floor. Raas Garba is a combination of Raas and Garba. Raas includes dancing with sticks, locally called dandias. A dancer hits the dandia of his/her partner, while performing a Raas Garba step. The dance is pretty easy especially, if you dancing on the beats of a Gujarati song. Garba is when many groups are doing a rhythmic dance simultaneously. It usually involves repeating of basic steps.

Watch the Raas Garba videos online! In case you do not find them convincing enough, you can always join dance classes, to learn the dance steps. In areas, where the Indian culture in very popular, Raas Garba classes are not hard to find. You can always ask your Indian Gujarati friends to teach you Raas Garba, as every immigrant is the ambassador of his birthplace. No one can teach better Raas Garba than the Indians themselves. If you are living in India, Raas Garba is really easy for you to learn. If you do not get to attend many Gujarati weddings, taking dance classes for Raas Garba is not a difficult task for you to accomplish. The Raas Garba dance is not really hard to learn as most of the time it is the fast tracked music that counts. If you are following the beats and the rhythm properly, left feet do not matter much. Above all, this dance is really enjoyable and involves great interaction of the other group members. All in all, the dance is really fun and embodies Indian culture in the best possible way.

]]> http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/raas-garba-a-sangeet-party/feed/ 0 Mehndi http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/mehndi/ http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/mehndi/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:17:37 +0000 admin http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/?p=37 Wedding day is a very important day in a couple’s life as this is a beginning of their new life. We work with the resort to include all activities leading up to and including the wedding ceremony. Depending on the number of days you would like to stay at the resort, we can include many events- like mehndi, barat, walima etc-celebrated in eastern countries. Mehndi is a pre wedding ritual which is mostly celebrated in India and Pakistan. This ritual has been practiced generation after generation. Mehndi is the most important event for girls as young girls put mehndi/henna of different patterns on their hands, arms and feet. It is a very stylish event: bride and young girls wear traditional dresses including lehngas, gharara, anarkali frocks etc. mostly yellow color is worn on mehndi including bride.
Young girls and boys present different dance performances. Bride wears yellow dress with yellow bangles and other floral accessories of ears and feet. The interior decor for mehndi party is also unique and very traditional; mostly people create different kind of themes with fitting mehndi decorations. Mehndi decorations include tents, pillows, cushions, rugs, dance floor, lamps, candles etc.
Cultural jewelery made of different ethnic and stylish cultural stones is worn on mehndis, including mang tikas, and bangles. Mehndi party is organized with sangeet function. The gathering mostly includes bride’s friends and other close relatives; girls dance and sing traditional songs. Normally white and black colors are not worn on these kinds of events as white is worn at funerals and black signifies mourning. During the mehndi ceremony of the bride mehndi trays are brought by the sister’s in-law. In the same traditional way these trays are much decorated with mirrors and other floral accessories. After this all the relatives come one by one and put mehndi on the bride’s hand.
Nowadays there is a very good culture of bringing the bride in a carriage which is called a doli. Some of the resorts we work with have carriages on property. (Horses are also often available for the groom to ride into the wedding ceremony.) The family members welcome the bride by doing a special dance called bhangra on dhol. The whole night is spent applying henna (we work with local artists to do this for guests) on hands, feet, arms and legs etc. and singing traditional songs. This tradition is almost 5000 years old.
We can arrange for local dancers to be part of the entertainment. The menu of the mehndi party mostly includes tradition dishes like haleem, karahi etc. We have flown in chefs from New York to prepare these foods. Mayuon is also a very important event of wedding which is related with mehndi, after mayuon the bride and the groom are not allowed to meet each other before wedding.
Dholki is also a part of mehndi which includes different dances and a sing song session. The invitation cards of mehndi are also very eye catching and include a list of all unmarried girls of the bride’s family. The bride and the bride groom are loaded with many kinds of garlands on the mehndi day.
Throughout the world people are fascinated by this wedding event. Attending a wedding at a tropical beach resort can be especially memorable. In any setting these traditional values and cultures are passed from generation to generation and are always treasured.

]]> http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/mehndi/feed/ 0 Your Wedding http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/your-wedding/ http://www.indianweddingtravel.com/your-wedding/#comments Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:27:58 +0000 admin http://indianweddingtravel.com/?p=1 Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

We want to make your Indian wedding as picture perfect as possible. We are a travel agency, but we handle most of the wedding planning for the weddings that we do.

After 9/11 it has become somewhat challenging for many Indian families to bring their friends and family to the United States from around the world for weddings. We have found that doing weddings in the Riviera Maya area, south of Cancun Mexico, provides easy accessibility for people from most countries.

We can arrange all-inclusive luxury accommodations to meet the needs of even the largest wedding parties. We are used to working with the resort and with family members to ensure honored guests have appropriete room assignments relative to the bridal party.

Some of the things we have arranged in the past:

  • A horse for the groom to ride into the service
  • Permitting for an open fire
  • Custom safe and security for storage of jewelry
  • Top chefs from NYC to oversee meal preparation
  • Training in appropriate designs for local hena artists
  • Local dancers
  • Site visits to Mexico for key family members

 If you have 50-1000 guests that will be joining you for 3-7 days of celebration, we would like to help you make your dream wedding come true.

 If you have questions, please give us a call. 1-800-697-2457

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