Namrata & Paul’s Sweet & Serene Traditional Hindu Wedding {United Kingdom}

Good day to you lovely readers! We have such a relaxing and fun treat for you today. Feast your eyes on Namrata and Paul’s sweet and serene wedding all the way from the UK! We are just loving that the two lovebirds had a traditional Hindu ceremony followed by a civil ceremony. The two even managed to escape in Paul’s Land Rover down to the beach for some spectacular private couple photos.

We asked bride Namrata and her photographer Florence Fox about her wedding.

Tell us about your wedding.

We created a fusion themed occasion with a Hindu ceremony and civil ceremony back-to-back for 120 guests and we planned a three day event so that people could relax into the venue and treat it like a mini-break. We were very keen to have children involved and welcome which helped to create a relaxed family feel.

We were absolutely blessed with the weather which was sunny, dry and warm with some amazing sunsets too.

Could you tell us about any special wedding customs/clothing you had?

The event was planned in three parts, the first evening being the Sangeet and Mehendi but as this was a fusion wedding, all our guests were invited to all parts of the occasion. This event started mid-evening on the Friday until early Saturday morning and included Henna tattooing for the ladies and braver men. The Saturday was the big day of the marriage. We planned a traditional Hindu/Vedic ceremony where there was a fire under our home-made Mandap and a Pundit who enabled us to take vows for our happy future with many detailed traditional elements. The Pundit was born in the UK but had more than 30 years experience of Hindu ceremonies and devotion. We provided him with a microphone and he was able to describe each element of the Hindu wedding to the audience as he went along. He created a relaxed informal atmosphere and succeeded in not setting off the fire alarms at the venue!

Our clothes came from London (Nam’s from Aashni & Co) and Gujarat (Paul’s from Manyavar).

The civil ceremony was very special too with a charming local registrar (Janet Rogers) who really cared about her job and conveyed genuine warmth and caring. During the signing of the register we had ‘Misty Blue’ by Etta James and we walked-out together to ‘For Once in my Life’ by Stevie Wonder a song which will bring me close to tears now.

What was the inspiration for your wedding?

“Vintage Dreamy Woodland Wedding” was our theme. We were inspired by the season of the year (autumn) and we aimed to prepare an outdoor and indoor wedding in case the weather was dramatic.

Did you do any DIY or special projects at the wedding?

Nam and Paul chose the style of cake from a catalogue at Patisserie Valerie, and not quite realising the implications, Paul decided that he would make the cake and it was down to the wire with his mother-in-law to be (Neelam) and he, who finished it on the Thursday night after two days of solid graft and tempered chocolate. The result was spectacular though and possibly £1,000 cheaper than a bought one would have been.

The wedding car was Paul’s 33-year-old Land Rover V8. This not only looked great but sounded amazing too and acted as the stage to many hundreds of photos on Saturday and Sunday. Despite a few technical glitches (overcome by best man James) the Landy performed like a true star and got us safely to our mini-moon in Tenby, turning heads all the way.

Paul’s Mum was tasked with the flowers and she found a market garden in Somerset where she bulk-bought several buckets of wild flowers and added several from her own gardn. Some inexpensive vases (gold-rimmed beakers) proved ideal to hold them and the end result was spectacular.

Our Pundit accidentally double-booked the Mandap and so we bought a 4m x 3m gazebo from e-bay, and using just the frame we draped it in light coloured cloth with decorations. This was a nice individual touch and it saved us another £500 or so.

The chef at the venue had no experience in cooking Indian food and so we designed all the menus and recipes ourselves with tasting sessions to iron out the glitches (such as lumpy paneer). We had a wonderful buffet wedding breakfast with a mixture of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes and an outdoor buffet on Sunday with a gypsy jazz band playing along too.

We started collecting wine early-on and capitalised on supermarket deals. We paid to venue £6 per bottle corkage on top so the wine cost us about £11 per bottle on average.

We turned the champagne buying into a tasting weekend away with friends in Epernay which was great fun and a lovely escape. For the wedding we bought 36 bottles of Charles Ellner Grande Reserve Brut for £12.50 each (+ £6 corkage) so the weekend away paid for itself (almost).

What was your favorite part of the wedding?

Bizarrely I would have to say leaving the venue in the wedding car was the best part, our first taste of freedom as a married couple. We went to take photos on the beach and then returned to the venue to continue the celebrations.

What 3 words of advice do you have for future brides/grooms?

It’ll be great…the main advice you might think is obvious that we would like to give is enjoy every moment of the wedding, no matter what goes wrong ignore those issues and have fun. You will be stressed at some points (unless you are a Zen Master) but our experience was that the stress melts away once everything gets-going.

Anything else you would like to add?

Make sure you get a good photographer to capture the moments. We had Florence who was absolutely exceptional with her work and makes the couple and guests feel comfortable.