Caring for an old house during your wedding
Your decorator, caterer and guests share a 230-year-old building for three days. Our house rules, and why they exist.
Haldi, mehendi, sangeet: where each function fits
Each courtyard suits a different kind of function. How we usually place a three-day wedding across the haveli.
With four courtyards, a rooftop, a hall and a lawn, there are many ways to arrange a wedding at the haveli. After a few hundred functions, this is the pattern that tends to work best. The haldi is a morning function and gets messy, so we hold it in the garden courtyard. It has a stone floor that washes easily, shade from the neem tree, and is close to the rooms, so the family can change and come straight back. Marigolds and yellow drapes are all it needs.
The mehendi suits the colonnades around the main courtyard in the afternoon. The light is soft, the artists have space and guests can sit on low gaddas. If the haldi and mehendi are on the same day, the garden courtyard can be turned around in about two hours.
The sangeet belongs on the rooftop at sunset, with the lake and the City Palace lit up behind the dance floor. For more than 150 guests we move it to the lawn. The pheras take the main courtyard, with the mandap in the centre under the open sky and family on the jharokhas above. In bad weather, the darbar hall.
The reception goes on the lawn, by the water. It is the largest space and the easiest for caterers and decorators to work in. Your coordinator will draw all of this on the plans at your first meeting.
