“Sort of.” She sighs, lifting her arms to check around her elbows. “The groom has to find the initials on the wedding night. If he can’t, tradition says I’ll have the upper hand through our marriage.” She grins mischievously at me. “I want to know where they are so I can do my best to hide that part of me from him. I don’t want to start our married life with him thinking Destiny is choosing him to have the upper hand.”
I laugh, shaking my head at her. “Maybe they’re hidden in the henna on your feet.”
“No, they’re definitely somewhere on my hands or arms,” she says firmly, letting her arms fall to her side, her many bangles jangling down to her wrists. “He’d better not find them before I do. I’ll be pissed off if he does.”
Working with Nisha has been one of the best wedding experiences of my life. She’s having an Anglo-Indian fusion wedding, with a traditional Hindu ceremony at a grand hotel in Kent. She came across my website when she was in full panic mode a few months ago, overwhelmed with the pressures of combining the most important traditions from both cultures, but eager to have control and not let either family take over. Luke, her fiancé, is lovely but shy and disorganized, and wasn’t bringing much to the table, so Nisha, an already very busy doctor, was coping with most of the planning.
She’d explained to me before that she had a small group of close friends from when she was studying medicine, but two lived abroad and the other was a GP and mother of two so Nisha wasn’t keen to lump her with wedding errands. She hired me to play the role of Louise, a good friend and colleague. As far as everyone else knows, I’m a hospital administrator. Together we stormed her to-do list in time for today.
The celebrations kicked off at Nisha’s home yesterday with themehndiparty: all of the women gathered together and a henna artist created the designs for the bride and her guests. I’d spent hours helping Nisha and her family decorate the house with twinkling lights and bright flower arrangements across mantelpieces and other surfaces already covered with colorful tablecloths. Neon cushions were scattered across the patterned rugs in the sitting room, and I’d helped her mum hang drapes of bright pink, purple, and blue along the walls and windows. I’d got pins and needles in my arms hanging dream catchers and jars of tealights from the trees in the garden, but it had looked spectacular when everyone arrived.
There was music, entertainment, and a copious amount of food, and everything went perfectly, except for Nisha irritating the henna artist by fidgeting. The bride has to sit very still for a long time while she has the elaborate and symbolic designs inked onto her skin, but Nisha kept wanting to get up and greet everyone as they arrived.
“Sit still!” the artist bellowed every time Nisha saw someone come through the door, his face so scrunched up with fury that his features almost disappeared. “You must bestill!”
That evening it was thesangeet,which was like a mini wedding, with dancing and singing and, at one point, a flash mob—everyone in Nisha’s family had learned the same dance and even her grandmother was swinging her hips and arms with everyone else.
Today, Nisha looks more beautiful than ever in her heavy red and gold embroidered bridallehengaand adorned from head to toe in shimmering gold jewelry. She had known from the beginning that she wanted to stick to a traditional red and gold bridal outfit, but it had taken visits to seven shops before we found her dream look.
At six o’clock this morning, she took me aside and presented me with a pair of beautiful gold dangling earrings. I told her she wasn’t supposed to give me anything as it was my job to be there, but she looked me in the eyes, clasped my hands, and said, “Sophie, I’m going to need you at every moment today and I’m so grateful in advance. And that is because I’m more hungover than I’ve ever been in my life.”
I laughed but stopped when she looked as though she was about to throw up, leading her speedily to the bathroom.
I’m truly amazed that she survived thehaldiceremony this morning, which began at seven, when turmeric paste was applied to her and Luke by family and friends.
“She looks very solemn,” one of her aunts commented affectionately, as someone wiped turmeric across Nisha’s cheekbones. “Still and thoughtful as she prepares herself for her marriage.”
I agreed, deciding it best not to explain that Nisha was so still and tense because she was concentrating on not throwing up the wine she’d consumed the night before.
Luke, meanwhile, looked terrified as the paste was slathered all over his face and torso. “Is it meant to burn?” he whispered to me, as more was applied to his chest and stomach.
Looking at Nisha now as she checks her striking eye makeup in the mirror one last time before we set off for her wedding ceremony, you would never have known that a few hours ago she was begging me to postpone it and let her curl up under her duvet with a cup of tea, watching old episodes ofGrey’s Anatomy.
Nisha’s brother appears in the doorway. “The buggy’s here!” He gestures for us to follow him. “Come on!”
Nisha shoots me a look and I can’t help but laugh.
Throughout the wedding preparations, she has made so many hilarious side comments to me about being driven to her wedding on a golf buggy—“Not a Bentley, Sophie, not a Rolls-Royce. Not even acar.I’m arriving at my wedding in abuggy.Its top speed is fifteen miles per bloody hour!”—that it has, bizarrely, turned out to be one of the parts of the day I am most excited about.
When we finally get out of the door, we’re greeted with the sight of the decorated buggy. She grabs my hand, a huge smile across her face. “Why would I want to arrive in anything else?”
I couldn’t agree more. It’s the coolest mode of transport I’ve ever seen. I want one.
As we reach the hotel where the ceremony will take place, I wonder how Luke is getting on with the white horse he’s supposed to be arriving on. He’s never been on a horse before and was genuinely terrified when we discussed it.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Nisha’s father told him, clapping him on the back. “I arrived for my wedding on an elephant, and let me tell you, elephants are very big. Much bigger than a horse.”
“Shame we couldn’t get the tiger to accompany the groom,” Nisha’s mum said to her husband. “That would have been something.”
“I told you,” he replied, irritated, “there were no tigers available!”
“The horse is good.” Luke gulped, his eyes widening. “I’m fine with just the horse.”
In fact, as the noisy parade of singing family members and banging drums alerts us that the groom is approaching, it seems as though Luke is very much at ease on his handsome white horse, loving every moment of his grand entrance. In the end it takes a while to coax him down but eventually he hops off with aplomb and gives his noble steed a pat on the neck. “Thank you, old friend.”
I make a mental note to suggest that Nisha give Luke riding lessons for his next birthday.
I laugh as I watch him make his way toward us, grinning from ear to ear, his future mother-in-law proudly leading the parade ahead of him.
