Indian weddings are a lot of fun, they have a lot of pre-wedding rituals. They start days in advance gearing up for the big day. A good friend of mine is getting married tomorrow. As a part of one of the rituals yesterday was the Mehndi Ceremony. Mehndi means Henna. It's like a temporary tattoo work done on hands during the wedding. As everyone knows India is diverse when it comes to religions and each one of them has their own customs and traditions. Mehndi ceremony is a part of certain religions only in India. For we Zoroastrians there is no such tradition, but Hindus do have it. My friend is having an inter-caste marriage so from her husband side she has all these traditions.

In this ceremony, bride, her family members and close friends all apply Mehndi on their hand. The ritual is celebrated in a big way. Everyone gathers up, there is music, dance, food and a lot of fun that happens. She being a very close friend I could not miss out on applying Mehndi on my hand.
I have never applied Mehndi on my hand before, this is the very first time, so I was very excited also and looking forward to.

Mehndi is a wet application, so after the design is made, you need to allow it to dry out for a minimum of 2 hours. The better it dries the stronger color it gets. If it is not allowed to dry up properly then the color will not come out very good. Should avoid washing hands for few hours after the application.

There are professionals who do the Mehndi application. It's an art work and needs very steady hands to do it. Also if the same design has to be done on both the hands then needs a lot of precision also. The two girls who had come to do the Mehndi application were very talented and skilled in this job. Over 5 hours, they applied Mehndi to almost 15 of us.

In the process

Some people like to cover up the whole palm and fingers with the design, I wanted it little open and not full, so I asked the lady to make it accordingly for me.

After finishing the application, it was time for a pose. With my friend who is getting married

After couple of hours as it starts drying up.

It takes some hours for the color to come up well. So while you see the previous picture where it shows kind of orange, and today morning it has taken a good color of brown.

Love the way the design has come up. This will stay for a few days, after a week or so it will start fading out. What I do not like about this is when it starts fading out it does not look very good.

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