And We Have A Winner!

After looking at lines and lines of HTML (do I sound "pro" yet?) and trying weird combinations with very scary outcomes, we have a ticker at the top that doesn't go away! All this when I should be finishing the 25 pending files from SourceMT before I give dot a wake-up call - yay anyways!

Did I Mention...?

I went back to the gym the day before yesterday. My relationship with the gym can be likened to that of a relapsed addict with group therapy...you hate it, but it's what's best for you - your only hope! :)

Masters, Mistresses and Wedding Bells

My search for the emcee took me through virtually all the ads in The Examiner (Cathotlic magazine with a weird name) with pictures of bow-tied and/or suited gentlemen peddling their talkability (sic) and skill at "making your event memorable". One of my calls was to a certain Mr Mendonca who came across as well-spoken and affable, and, the biggest thing, he was available on our function date. He said he'd like to meet both of us, which I explained might not be possible just now because of dot being away. So I agreed to meet him the next day at his Juhu (for dot - I live to the east of Santacruz station and Juhu is in the west) residence. The meeting was nice - both he and his wife (who he said was his partner in planning) are very kind and warm - they are both teachers - but I still cannot get over how strangely dump-like their place looked - and I don't mean cluttered. But they were very very cooperative and forthcoming, and that was such a change from the others I had spoken to. This means we finally have an emcee - yay!

The other thingie I did was to go and pick up the invitation card samples from Wedding Bells; I will post a picture and also send it across to the folksters and nodot - oh yes, and dot too (wink) :)

Mommie and Papa are going to pick the bandhgala today - so Papa can try it and see if any more fitting alterations need to be made - so that too gets done today and can be struck off the list.

To-Do Today:
- Check with Lillian about the Gulfair buddy tickets.
- Check with anybody about discounted tickets (what are friends for after all?!).
- Update "Wedding" Excel sheet :)
- Try to work on an "our wedding" website - I'm more than at sea with this - to think that a few days ago I felt like the next big thing in webpage design :(

Till later then darlings....

Of Ancient Evenings and Distant Music

The title of this post has nothing to do with the post itself, but I just can't get enough of that book! Yeah so it's soppy and sappy, and probably even kitschy somehow, but it has a certain surreal fable-like quality to it and I'm a fan! Anyways, this post is not a book review, and so let me tell you what I've been up to since I was last here.

At the beginning of the week, I was thinking of what we might do for our invitations, knowing we need two separate sets, each giving the Kochi and Mumbai details respectively, and probably two sets of smaller inserts with the same details for people who need to be invited to both ceremonies. We have a small card-printing shop here in Kalina called Wedding Bells (how's that for typical :)) but, to its credit, it is a very unpretentious place and delivers what it promises - cards. Mum was with me, and from the 500-odd designs and found one we loooved. Its beautiful and I hope to be able to get dot and nodot to see it sometime soon. We might use the same one for the Kochi invitation if the folksters would like. I'm going to send them a sample this week and see what they say.

The other wedding thingie I did was to try to find a compère for the Mumbai reception. Jard recommended a certain Raymond Gonsalves (don't giggle you two :)) and I called the man. Now, he sounded "smooth" but a little too smooth for moi. All he did in the three conversations we had was talk about money. He said he had a base charge for a function up to 10 p.m. and would charge one grand extra for every additional hour that it went on for. Then he said, you see people call me all the time, and if you don't book me with money, I'll have to take someone else's booking on - it sounded fair to me. But then he said, "see I'm going to Calcutta on Monday; try to send the money really soon." - fair again. When asked about the advance payment, he said, "I usually charge a 2.5K advance, but since your reception is at an indoor venue, it might go on into the wee hours of the morning, so you will have to pay me more anyways, and so I'll take a 3k advance. This guy was starting to sound like an extortionist. Then he said, "if you want to call me in Calcutta, send me a text message first; I have all these people calling me, and I don't know if they're important to me - and every time I answer the phone I have to pay Rs.5 because I'm on national roaming". That did it for me. I am not sure I want this guy to do the reception, but Jard says he's really good. Lavina gave me another contact that she was to get but he was booked on the day of her function. His number seems to be "temporarily disconnected". A little bit of a quandary here. I hope to get some leads this week and get it finalized and out of the way.

So the to-do list for this week is pretty much the same - finalize card and master of ceremonies. Oh, and I have to pick up daddy's bandhgala (how exciting?!); I can't wait to see how it turned out! Fingers crossed! I might also go do some research on a seamstress for my Mumbai outfit. We'll see how it all goes.

Till then, I'm off to dreaming about this...

But I am more than happy to have this...

...and I'm more than sure dot will agree. Here's to covered bridges and the rest of our lives! (sigh)

The Outcome of A Little More Keeda

Look at the sidebar of this blog, in between the Previous Posts and the Archives sections. How exciting!!

Ta Dah!

Slow but Steady

As I Was Saying....

I got my cousin, Savio (mum's brother's son), to bring over his bandhgala for Papa to try out, and look how good that experiment turned out! Is my daddy handsome or what?! (And, oh my god! I can now upload photos and even resize and orient them!!) So, Nehru Jacket (I'm learning, the hard way, that sometimes, the best way, is the middle way) it shall be for Dad. His two-shops-half-day trip is planned for tomorrow and we're going to Dadar (for dot - more than one two thirds of the way from Churchgate to Bandra) to Savio's tailor and then coming to Bandra to check out a pair of shoes for dad.

With that out of the way, so to speak, I'll let you in on an interesting project that I would like to enlist your help with. Me and the boy were talking the other day and suddenly somehow figured we didn't have an "our song". Now, I think that's almost tragic and particularly when dot was such a darling to agree to do a little slow dancing ("only if you teach me"). So that's where you come in, particularly you, nodot (dot please don't whinge). You have to help me find an "our song" so that we can (a) show off about always having had a song and (b) do a little jig at the party. Speaking of songs, I have been talking to Allister about someone for the music - he suggested a few names and the kind of music they'd have. I guess we should be good if we can pick the major portion of the music for the evening and let the guy ad lib with the rest. So that's a new "to do" item.

And yes, I wore a saree to church today, and it looked nice (as dot so eloquently put it). The pictures I ended up with were ultra-crappy; so even if it did look good, it's no use, in post mortem. That reminds me to fix an appointment with the photographer when dot is in town so he can go with me and more because I then have my ass covered for all the future "it's all your fault" conversations :))

Nodot, I am extremely sorry about the tee; I am fast losing faith in my ability to pick the right thing - or did I ever have it?

Oh and there is just one more project to talk of before I go - our invitation card. I guess having a separate ones for Kochi and Mumbai will make the inviting less complicated. Let me know what you think and I am also taking suggestions for what the text of the invites should be. I must add here that dot has been more than forthcoming with ideas that I am "obligated" to listen to; sigh...to learn to be be a wife!

While coming up for air as I type this, I'm up to some nifty thingie in another window. Keep watching this space...

When Nothing and Everything Happens

Yesterday was just one of those days....I didn't manage to get anything significant done - not that I had anything major in mind. I did go shopping for a gift for AMR, whose birthday it is tomorrow; didn't get an appropriate gift for her but I did manage to find a great place that would tailor the bandhgala for Papa and he's going to let me know when he can make the trip to the tailor with moi. So that's good; and I didn't forget I had to pick you something too nodot - don't you worry :)

I had a pretty significant late evening though, where I learnt a valuable lesson about not letting my head take over my heart - something I thought I already knew, but evidently didn't :) Ah well, shit happens and sometimes you're unpleasantly surprised.
You live, you learn (with all due respect to Ms. Morissette - great great song, incidentally).

Today, I have to work all morning and I'll probably spend the evening with AMR celebrating her birthday. I am going to be led by my heart :)

I can almost see nodot losing it a little bit at this point in the blog with my abstract (to him) philosopy. Big hug. You can unfurrow your brow now.

Back and With So Much to Say (As Always)

The date of my last post will become the topic of many this-day-that-year specials in the future - like you've probably read and seen and heard a million times over now, it was India's wettest day in about a century and my poor bursting-at-the-seams city just couldn't handle it. I was to write a little description of events had I gotten back online earlier; but, you all know the story now and how things turned out. I'm glad and very grateful we were all safe and relatively unaffected.

Because we didn't have electricity for several days after the deluge, we took a "vacation" to my Oji Mashi's (my mum's middle sister and my godmother) house, and guess what?! We managed to finish all our saree shopping last weekend! I picked out my wedding saree (which is so unlike the one I've said I might like in my previous post, sigh!) and sarees for my two mashis (mum's sisters), one aunty (mum's brother's wife) and my one mommie. Mum and I also managed to get our shoe shopping done and I'm so glad to tick things off my to-do list! Going shopping with my mashis is always a riot. Our latest shopping spree was to buy some upholstery fabric for us and some salwar kameez thingies for the mashis. We went to this famous "shopping centre" in Parel (that's a place close to Dadar - in between Churchgate and Santacruz on the railway line). This place, like all sales, was so full of women that believe that anything with boobs is non-threatening and can therefore be jostled, leaned on, shoved in the small of the back, and talked to in any language and expected to understand - all in the name of a good bargain. (Have I told you before that I like to believe I'm a misogynist?) Anyways, we got what we wanted and I had a fun Saturday with yummy lunch at Gulu Mashi's (my mommie's youngest sister). Useful PR tip for dot and nodot - she is the bestest cook in the family; so you know who to be nicest to.

Saturday evening had me meeting up with Ralph, the monopoly decorator for Plaza Banquets. When I told you that Sebastian D'souza, the manager, was "mac", I obviously hadn't met good ol' Ralphy. He's the nicest, kindest man with hair coming out of his ears (no, that's not the nicest thing) and the most ancient photo albums with even more ancient backdrop decor pictures I have ever seen! Thermocole swans and doves and angels and glittering lettering that read "V 2 R 1" and "SO weds SUCH", etc. He had no more than a faint idea of what I wanted and when I asked him about an archway for the entrance to the hall, he said "I'm not sure how to do it - you might consider asking the venue manager". I curled up and died, to put it very mildly. Anyways, I've a sort of situation on my hands - if I chose not to go with the new Mr. Mac, I'll have to pay a "royalty" of INR 10K in addition to paying whichever other decorator I choose - this is the policy at Plaza. I plan to look up pictures of what I like and show these to him, so he can tell me if it is at all doable. Avril's helping me out with the decor. Between the two of us, I hope we can get a fix on something soon.

I'm not sure if I mentioned earlier that Massi Coelho is going to be doing our pictures and video and I'm very very happy it's him. Massi's wife Adeline was Mum's colleague at Kodak for 27 years (!!) and they're very good friends. He's a fab photographer and I didn't consider him in the first place because I knew he had given up commercial photography; but luckily for us, he's going to be there and I'm glad it's him because he's very sensible and someone to whom you can explain exactly what you want and how you want it and be sure he understands. Yippee - one more thing off the list!

I don't have any significant to-do items planned for this week yet. We might go get my Papa's clothes shopping done. That will take some research and planning because I can't take him to more than one shop for more than one thing and it has to take no more than half a day tops. I will keep you posted - watch this space like you so faithfully do...I love you for it :)