My Bridal Story | Engagement Look

Our entire wedding was planned within 8 months. We held our engagement in July 2017 and the wedding in October 2017.
I used social media, especially Instagram, to do endless amounts of research into the types of outfits I wanted to be made.
Both my engagement and reception outfits were tailor made in India as I am fortunate to know and work with different tailors there. 

My engagement outfit was inspired by Manish Malhotra. I’m a big fan of raw silk and chiffon materials and a lot of his 2017 designs were just beautiful.

I think I saw Sonam Kapoor wearing a baby pink skirt with pearl embroidery and an embellished blouse. When I saw it I instantly felt like I could rock this at my engagement! As it was a summer engagement, these colours were just perfect. I put my own twist on it with a pistachio green dupatta and a backless blouse that tied up. The original was an off the shoulder top but you’ll soon understand why I didn’t go for this.

I didn’t go to India until after my engagement to do the rest of my wedding shopping. So really, I was taking a gamble with having this outfit made, but it paid off! Well, I think it did anyway!

I got in touch with the tailor and I told him exactly how I envisaged the final outfit.

For the most part it all went smoothly- he sent me image swatches of the embroidery for the skirt, colours options and material types before starting any work! He knew by this point I was a little fussy! I’m one of those people who likes to keep on top of what’s happening.

The blouse was a little tricky and now looking back on it I’m surprised I took the risk. It was a sequined embellished blouse so I had to be really careful with alterations to ensure the beads wouldn’t break, otherwise there would be nothing left on the blouse! When the outfit arrived I was really nervous to open it but it all worked out in the end! I did have to make some adjustments but thankfully my mum is great with this stuff so she sorted it out for me! Worst case I would have found a tailor here to make the alterations. 

 I believe that once I know what I like, I can piece things together. This is what I did for every outfit. It takes a good amount of research and time to get the final result you want.

The Look

My outfit colours were based on the time of year I was getting engaged. Having a summer engagement meant I wanted to keep the colours bright, exciting and fresh. This was the same for my makeup too.

As my outfit was bold and colourful, I felt the make-up should be quite natural with the use of browns and gold. I am fond of individual lashes as they create a look quite different to strip lashes. You can build on the lashes to reach your desired look.

I didn’t want the stress of doing my own makeup on my wedding day and also wanted a completely different look to what I am used to.

What tips can I give you if you’re planning an engagement?

I think the most important thing I learnt planning an event was communicating and compromising.

We had a traditional engagement (Sagai) and both sides of the family did them quite differently. We got together and discussed which parts each family would like incorporated.

After that, Sanjay and I began to get the plans in place. As we only had a few months to plan our engagement, it was sometimes difficult to get everyone together as much as we wanted.

The event was pretty straightforward as we had it in a Mandir. The main thing for us was finding a photographer and décor company. This all fell into place quite nicely. I guess being in the industry made it easier for me to understand what I want and don’t want. 

Sanjay and I always discussed budgets for each service we were getting. Of course we had a buffer here and there for everything. Spreadsheets were our saviour - I cannot stress enough how easy it is for things  to spiral out of control!   

Like I mentioned previously, wedding costs can creep up and it is about prioritising  and budgeting for all your requirements. What might be important to one couple may not be the same for another. There really is no right or wrong answer. 

We didn’t have an official event planner for this event but with careful planning and itinerary building your events can run smoothly. Sanjay is really thorough in his planning so he got an itinerary ready for a family friend who was co-ordinating the afternoon. Every little detail was included. We then gave the key family members and photographer the itinerary so that if anything needed doing it could be sorted easily.

So if you are looking to save or budget for something else this is a way that worked really well for us. It was a relatively small event and we felt amongst both families we could make it work. We thoroughly enjoyed the day and the weather! I think getting my outfit made was more stressful than the engagement planning itself.

I just want to finish off by saying- enjoy every minute of your special day. ¸You spend so much time planning but the actual day goes by so fast -it felt like it was over in a blink! I would relive my engagement again if I could!

Thank you for watching the second part of my story. 

Part three of this story will be all about my Mehndi.