Should i finalise this as my reception lehenga?

Hey everyone!

Getting married this December in Dehradun, and I’m trying to understand how wedding expenses are traditionally divided between the bride and groom’s families, especially in North Indian weddings.

For some context, here’s our guest count:

• Engagement/Sangeet

• Groom’s side: 40

• Bride’s side: 100

  • Haldi

• Groom’s side: 40

• Bride’s side: 100

  • Wedding

• Groom’s side: 60

• Bride’s side: 200

Around 30 guests from my side will be travelling to bride’s city uttarakhand and will need accommodation.

Current expense arrangement:

• I’m contributing 40% towards the wedding venue(haldi+wedding same day - 18 lakhs, engagement a day before-2 lakh).
• I’m covering accommodation for my 30 guests.
• I’m also contributing 40% towards wedding photography.(1.6 lakh is what photographer quoted)
• Baraat band, ghodi, etc. are additional expenses I’m trying to figure out.

I’ve heard that traditionally, when the wedding happens in the bride’s hometown, the bride’s family takes care of accommodation and hospitality for the baraatis, while the groom’s family handles the band, ghodi and procession.

But I’m not sure how commonly this is actually followed nowadays.

Would love to hear from people who’ve recently gotten married in North India, especially Uttarakhand, Delhi, UP or Punjab.

How did you split these expenses? Did the bride’s family arrange the groom’s guests’ accommodation, or did each side cover their own guests? And who paid for the baraat band and ghodi?

Also, when there’s a big difference in guest count between both sides, do families usually split wedding expenses 50/50, proportionally, or just follow traditional customs?

Not trying to make it a competition about who pays more. Just genuinely curious about what’s considered normal these days, since this is all pretty new to me.

Would appreciate some real experiences!

Hi everyone! 😊
I’m looking for a **female photographer + videographer duo or an all-female team** for my wedding.
📍 **Location:** RT Nagar, Bangalore
📅 **Date:** Friday, 20th November 2026
🕖 **Time:** Evening, after 7 PM
💰 **Budget:** ₹45,000–₹50,000
I’m not looking for anything too grand or extravagant. My main priorities are **beautiful couple shoots, candid moments, and a good wedding highlight video**. ❤️
If anyone is interested or has any recommendations, please DM me with your portfolio and package details.
Thank you! ✨

Planning an Indian wedding involves a lot of decisions, but I think one of the most underestimated challenges is finalising the guest list.

It's not always as simple as deciding who the couple wants to invite. Both families have relatives, friends, colleagues and social obligations. Someone adds a few names, the other side has its own requests, and before you know it, the guest count has grown beyond what you originally planned.

And every additional guest affects the budget, catering and sometimes even the venue.

I've been exploring this problem and started building a tool to make managing wedding guest lists easier, particularly when two families need to bring their lists together and keep track of the costs.

But I'm curious about how people actually handle this in real life.

• Do you maintain separate guest lists for both families or combine everything into one?
• How do you handle disagreements about who should be invited?
• Has your guest count grown significantly beyond your original plan?

I'd love to hear how couples and families are dealing with this.

So we are Maharashtrians (grooms family) and the bride's side are from Karnataka - hence we will be having a morning wedding ceremony. The wedding is scheduled for a Sunday (Mahurat time around 11:30am) expected to be attended by around 200-250 guests; post which in the evening the plan is to host a reception dinner for larger audience of around 400-450 guests (including the ones attending the wedding). Now the problem is since the wedding is on Sunday morning, a lot of our guests will reach the city on Saturday Afternoon/Evening basis the availability of trains/flights from their cities. Now because anyway the guests will be reaching 1 day prior - my parents are planning to keep one more function for Saturday evening (around 150 ppl expected) to keep the guests engaged.

Now we need suggestions on what to call this function/event. My parents are planning to keep this as Haldi function as anyway Haldi is a mandatory ritual which otherwise we do at homes but does keeping Haldi function in evening look odd? They dont want to have a Sangeet function as our communities typically dont have one and feel that it is nothing but a forced talent show which barely anyone is interested in watching. Requesting suggestions on this please!!!

I don’t have any slots to arrange a separate ring exchange event / sangeet ceremony. We cancelled keeping sangeet since we didn’t want staged performances like a talent show. We’re gonna do games and dances in carnival / soirée. The function / event will be scheduled to start by 5.30 - 6.30 pm. The basic theme of the event is vibrant and colourful. The decor is colourful. ( not pastel ) and so are our outfits. We’re gonna do like family interactive games, followed by dances by a few of my close people. I will also a couple of solo dances and then maybe a couple dance. Ofcourse the usual dj dance setup is there as well. Now we wanna do our ring exchange ceremony too. Essentially just making each other wear the rings ( since the rituals will already be done in the morning itself ). How do I make it look unique / different but yet get the engagement vibes from this event? What can I name the function that indicates that it’s colourful carnival but at the same time the couple will exchange rings too. Also how should I do the flow of events in this case??

So my partner and I have budgeted for outfits and accessories about 1.5-2lakhs for me probably about 1-1.5 lakh for him for 5-6 looks, and we are looking for a stylist to help us. For context, we are based in London but getting married in Lucknow will be shopping in November in Delhi for wedding in Feb. Is this too low of a budget to get any professional help in delhi or is it possible?

I need a little direction here from everyone informed. I'm getting married in February 2027. We're having a great courtship period. But last night she revealed that she wants another ceremony at Triyuginarayan Mandir. Nothing grand, no bells and whistles...just the two of us after our "official" wedding.

Can anyone guide me about requirements, procedure, costs, bookings and everything in between ? I wanna keep it tightly budgeted keeping away from agencies and tourism companies as much as possible. Don't want it to be an event , but a ceremony holding spiritual significance for my partner.

Gifts

Hi India!
We are travelling to Mumbai for a wedding celebration .
We are the Irish Mother and step Father of the groom.
It’s very exciting tbh! We have met the brides parents (Indian Father - English Mother) several times and they are great people.
My question is regarding gifts. In particular the Brides Grandmother.
We are thinking along the lines of something Irish of course.
We would like the gift to be something from our part of the world, specifically Northern Irish.
We are open to ideas but at the minute are leaning towards an item of Belleek Crystal.
Very open to and will appreciate any advice.
Thank you in advance.

Hello! I am traveling to India for the first time in November for a wedding in Mumbai. It will be a mixed wedding, with both Hindu and Catholic ceremonies. The bride was one of my closest friends during our masters program in London and I’m for South America.

I’ve been looking at lehengas and shararas online (they are so beautiful!) but I’m at a loss on how they should fit, about the fabrics, etc. and have also now noticed most of them are not ready to ship so they might not make it in time. Also, style-wise (though this is the least important tbh!) I am usually more on the minimalistic/fashion forward side but have no idea what the different outfits I’m seeing communicate regarding your personal style.

I am wondering if it might be better to buy my outfit directly once in India. I am planning to arrive to Mumbai 3-4 days in advance to fight off the jetlag and go sightseeing - would it be too insane to wait until being there to buy my outfit? Where would you recommend I go?

For reference, I am thinking about spending up to 350 USD per lehenga/sharara/saree set. Out of the options I saw online the first photo was the bride’s favorite for the ceremony (but I don’t think it will arrive in time if I ship it to my country - I could also ship it to my hotel in Mumbai, but then would it be better to just buy something there?). And second one was her favorite for the cocktail party, which has an optional either traditional Indian or Western dresscode.

Thank you!!

Hi people 👋🏻

I'm 30F, getting married in March 2027 and looking for one resort (or a resort + hotel next door) where everyone can stay for 2 nights.

I expect about 200 guests, roughly 70 rooms, triple/quad sharing is fine.

My plan is as follows:

Fri to Sun: ring ceremony + DJ night, then a small pooja + DJ night. Nothing grand.

pure veg, guests bring their own drinks

Budget around ₹15L for rooms + food + venue, both nights (i know this is very tight maybe, but we can't afford more than that, pls be kind). We have kept separate budget for jewellery, dress, photographer etc etc.

Guests coming from Delhi NCR (70-80), Mumbai, Lucknow, Bhopal (100), Jabalpur, so somewhere a few hours from Delhi. Rajasthan, Alwar side, Corbett, NCR outskirts all open, or if any suggestions you guys have which i might have missed 🙏🏻

Would love to know:

-places you’ve actually been to that fit this

-what you paid and roughly when

-which ones allow an outside caterer or have low corkage

-red flags or places to avoid

-if you have any better suggestions for me how to do it I'm all open to hear since i have zero knowledge about it. Please feel free to suggest what you think best and give some tips and tricks.🙏🏻🙏🏻

Thanks!