Weddingbee Blog

So as you know from this post, we had decided to buy Mama Knitting an Indian sari to wear to my wedding. Now it was time to actually find her one. Neither of us had ever bought a sari before so this was a new adventure.

However, before we get to the shopping fun, I’ve had a request to reveal more about how my mom got so interested in all things Indian. Basically, it all started with a boyfriend who had been to India and who took her for Indian food. She thought it was the most delicious food she’d ever tried and her fascination took off from there. She even went to see the movie Gandhi 3 times in theatres. It helped that my parents moved to Brampton in the early ’80s as it has a huge Indian population so she has lots of Indian friends and coworkers. There are also lots of Indian food stores, clothing stores, and newspapers everywhere in Brampton. For over 20 years while I was growing up my parents actually hosted a Christmas Eve Indian feast at our home and they still go out for Indian food every Friday evening. It’s pretty adorable.

Anyway, back to the shopping!

Our first stop wasn’t somewhere in Little India like you might think, but rather in the basement of a woman’s home. My mom had been referred to Shakuntala for alterations for one of her other Indian outfits and had learned that Shakuntala also sells saris out of her basement. Random, I know, but we loved the idea of supporting her small business.

Anyway, the shopping process itself was pretty easy as Shakuntala gave us about 5 options. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t find anything we both loved with such a small selection, but I figured we were there, so my mom might as well start trying things on.

Here’s the first one she tried:

Mama Knitting loved this one and I thought it looked great too. However, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the colour, so we moved on.

I had noticed a nice looking burgundy one, which also happens to be one of my favourite colours and one of the colours in our wedding palette.

Here it is (pretend the green strap is burgundy):

I’m sorry it’s such a badly lit picture because you really can’t see the sari properly, but take my word for it: it’s GORGEOUS! So lovely and elegant. It’s 100% silk and this completely lovely deep colour with all this incredible embroidery. I LOVED it, and as you can probably guess, this is the one my mom will be going with. As you can probably also guess from all my enthusiasm, I definitely want to borrow it after the wedding!

Here we all are:

So now Shakuntala will be making up the sari to my mom’s measurements and it should be ready in August. I can’t wait to see what it will look like when it’s properly fitted. Now we just have to figure out how to tie it properly…

All in all our sari shopping experience was pretty easy and stress free. I guess there’s something to be said for having a limited number of options!

Is someone in your family wearing cultural dress to your wedding? What was the shopping experience like for you?