Well hello there. How are ya? Good? Great!

Welcome to Part 2 of my Wedding Series. Today is all about MY mendhi night. If you missed Part 1, check it out HERE. 

First, let me start by saying that I did my mendhi, otherwise known as “henna” separate from my actual henna party which was held the next day.

Why? Well, wait a sec and let me get into it!

OK –

Thursday, 12/12/19 officially kicked off the wedding festivities with the application of my henna.

First a little backstory –

I first met my artist Shweta Tekade of Artistic Henna at a Shaddi Bazzar Wedding expo. I was immediately drawn to her work because it was filled with lots of traditional Indian lines and fine detail.

I knew then that I HAD to have her do my bridal mendhi. 1 year later, here she was.

I was a total psycho and had all my vendors in line 1 year in advance – a lot of people told me I was too ahead of the game, but I don’t believe in that. Better to be prepared and ready.

anyways.  

I decided to do my mendhi the night before the actual mendhi party because I wanted to be able to mingle with my guests.

You can’t really do that if you are sitting in a corner for 3 hours, immobile and stuck.

My family from Australia joined us, along with my cousins and nephew from London, my parents, my brother and my matron of honor.

We kept it low key with pizza and wine. Since my hands were out of commission I had Rachel (my matron of honor) feeding me wine out of a wine glass with a straw.

I really wish we had taken a picture of that!

I had been scoping Pinterest for months on the design that I wanted. I knew I wanted a more traditional looks with a lot of little details on my palms.

Shweta was really easy to work with and gave me her opinion on a few styles I was looking at. I finally decided on my favorite and we were off!

She did mendhi on my hands that went half way up my arms, along with mendhi on my feet that went a few inches above my ankle.

The whole process took about 3 hours, which really wasn’t that bad.

I was a total bougie princess and took full advantage of being waited on hand and foot.

I was hoping my henna would come out deep red and not the ugly orange I was used to having.

The color of the mendhi is really dependent on your body heat. The warmer you are the darker the color be, which also the most preferable.

(if you see henna guaranteeing you a certain color, DO NOT BUY IT – the henna is not real and may cause skin allergens. Real henna is derived from the plant Lawsonia, also known as hina or the henna tree)

To get my color V dark – I wrapped myself up in tissue paper, followed by a hoodie and my big ass comforter.

I was literally pouring out sweat that night – it was pretty gross, but my color came out super dark and then continued to get darker each day.

It is believed that the deeper the color the stronger the love for your husband.

 It is also tradition for the names of the groom to be hidden in the design. It is said that the couple cannot consummate the marriage until the groom has found his name.

It took Justin 3 DAYS to find his name!!!!!!!!!! (he will say he wasn’t actually looking for it. whatever Justin.)

I ended up keeping on my mendhi for 16 hours! Right before the actual henna party I scraped it off with the back of a butter knife and wrapped plastic bags around my arms and feet when I showered.

I’ll get into the henna party next week.

Until then….

Xx

K

Sweet and Masala

Photos By Rachel Daly and Shweta Tekade of Artistic Henna