Pallavi & Neil's Garba We had the pleasure of covering Pallavi & Neil's wedding weekend and since it combined both Tamil & Gujarati traditions, it was a wonderful mish-mash of cultures & events.

Here are some highlights from their garba which was held at the San Ramon Community Center. Since it's a semi-circular hall with a half-dome, I always feel like it's the perfect place for garba!

We're used to capturing all the action & movement at garba-raas, but this time, let's start with some of the details. Neil's family added some cute little touches throughout the hall to make sure people know this was a Gujarati affair :)


And the unique Ganesh statue's they had were just wonderful! These were true works of art and I couldn't help but spend some extra time getting some interesting angles on these statues.

Onto the dancing!







Watch out for more from Pallavi & Neil's wedding weekend coming up on the blog shortly!

Labels: Garba, Gujarati, Hindu, Portfolio, Weddings

  Permanent Link 5:03 PM  1 Comments Links to this post

  Tejal & Nalin's Pre-Wedding Events As most people would probably already know, Indian weddings can last days. In fact, that's one of the first thing non-Indians might say is something like "Man, they take so long!".

Umm...yeah.
.
..
...
But, the next thing they say might is "I'm sure they're so much fun though!"

Ain't it true!

Tejal & Nalin brought us down to the Pismo Beach area to cover 5 events spread across 3 days and boy, did everyone have a blast. With most people flying and driving in from all over the country, it was really like a destination wedding...even though the destination was Tejal's 'hood.

So let's start off with the pre-wedding events


With over 800 people attending various events...Tejal's mom really held it down and made sure everyone enjoyed the weekend. Of course, she had lots of help, but as photographers, we've just gotta hand it to the parents of our couples, this one especially. They always do so much to not only please their guests, but also to make their photographers welcome in their homes!





The details of pre-wedding events are always interesting and definitely less well understood than the main wedding ceremony. These are where specific family culture really varies. Even amongst Gujaratis, the order of things and the littlest details will be unique depending on which part of the state the family originates from.


One of the most fun elements of a wedding weekend is the bride's Haldi ceremony. In Gujarati culture, this is referred to as the Pithi. Starting with the aunts who are usually a bit more docile...

To the friends who make sure the haldi gets ALL over...

Ending with the bride getting her friends back for all the haldi loving attention :)


Moving onto the garba raas...it's all about the movement and the craziness of running around with sticks!





More to come soon from the rest of Tejal & Nalin's wedding weekend....stay tuned!

Labels: Garba, Grah Shanti, Haldi, Portfolio, Weddings

  Permanent Link 3:44 PM  1 Comments Links to this post