My bridal henna

I’m in the mood to talk about weddings again!!
While flipping through my photos (I will never grow tired of them), I kept looking at how nice my bridal henna was. I’ve got a bunch of people to thank for that.

Initially, I was quite unsure whether or not I wanted to have the whole floral henna prints on my hands and feet, as while browsing for “inai pengantin” online, I happened to chance upon some really unsightly patterns on some unfortunate brides. Then I also wasn’t keen on having the globs of henna at the tips of my fingers. However, thinking it through, it IS after all a once in a lifetime affair, and it’s not like I’ll get to do the intricate sort of henna designs on my hands on other occasions. So I decided to have it anyway!

I went on a mission to look for affordable yet creative and trusty henna artists (as I call them) and found quite a few reliable ones. However, the ones I liked were quite costly, going way beyond my budget. Months went by and I still have not found anyone to do my bridal henna. Finally, one fine Sunday, I found this bubbly Indian girl who said she could do my bridal henna both hands and feet within my budget! I was so happy!!!

I didn’t see any examples of her work, though it was quite risky, I just went with her on instinct. She turned out to be absolutely fabulous.

So the night before my nikah, she took a long walk to my house (luckily she lives around my neighbourhood) and arrived with all her henna stuff. When I opened the door, she exclaimed “heeyyy… didn’t we go to the same school?” Hahahahahha, what a coincidence ey? Her name’s Vaani and she happened to be my junior in school which got her really excited. While doing my hands, she was chatting animatedly much to the entertainment of my uncles who sat around for quite some time watching her at work. She’s really amazing. I showed her a picture of a pattern I fancied and she copied it just like that!! She even improvised to make it better!

At the very last minute, I decided against doing patterns on my feet so she went around to do henna patterns for my cousins instead. She’s just an absolute doll.

The day after that, the patterns came out looking marvelous but unfortunately, it wasn’t as bright as I would have liked it. So my uncles came to the rescue. One of my aunts brought the special henna from Mecca (don’t know, we all just call it Inai Mekah) and two of my uncles sat beside me and simultaneously traced back the patterns that Vaani did the day before. Then one of my boy cousins helped to put henna on my toenails to make them pretty too. After about an hour of leaving the henna on, the end result was simply stunning (from my point of view, that is, hehehe). I felt 100% a traditional Malay bride!

So here’s a big thanks to Vaani, for creatively drawing beautiful floral patterns on my hands; to both my uncles (Ayah Yut and Ayah Mi) for missing lunch while patiently tracing back the details of the patterns on my hands; and to Arif, for doing my pretty lil’ toesies!

Below are pictures of my bridal henna.

To those who are interested in Vaani’s services, you can email her at v_kalaivaani@yahoo.com.my or call her at 014 2227556.