Wedding saris

My worldly possessions of a total of 1 sari has been multiplied by 5! First day in India, we arrived 9am and at 2pm already set out to go shopping for the wedding saris. A. stayed home (sleeping the jet lag off) while SIL, MIL, FIL and I went to a 5 story shop full of saris (and tons of other clothing). My MIL had shown me a simple maroon sari that she said I’d wear for the wedding and I had naively thought that the clothing issue had been taken care of. Not so… I was to pick 4 more saris to wear at different occasions during the wedding (including some quick changes from one to another in mid ceremony!). Considering the hassle of picking out a dress for my Brazilian wedding and taking into consideration that I’m frugal about spending money on clothes I will very rarely ever use again, I wasn’t too excited.


Also, there are designs, styles and colors that are appropriate for each of the saris I needed. So here we are… SIL was super helpful in dismissing the less flashy ones and picking some very ornate ones or some “interesting” color combination ones according to need (usually my initial options were discarded as too plain). I ended up with:

Simple saris:
- a watermelon-colored sari with green and gold borders (sounds weird but it is my favorite)
- a dark metallic blue sari with a picnic-tablecloth-style border in red and white

Grand saris:
- a blue and dark pink sari with golden embroidery
- a three colored sari (maroon, dark green and tan) with golden embroidery and border

I must admit I like some a lot more than others, but overall I liked the experience of sitting in comfy chairs overlooking piles and piles of neatly arranged saris and having a small battalion of men all set to bring, show and open any one you might like (with someone serving you water, soda, coffee every ½ hour). I also got a sari for my mom (hope she gets used enough to it to be able to wear it), and one for MIL. Added to the saris SIL bought, we exited the store 2:30 later with 16 pieces!! Quite a purchase!