For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about whether to throw an engagement party at all. Some of my friends have been pestering me about it and others have told me that its not a strict requirement. I guess it is a nice celebration to share with friends.

I estimate a small lunch and drinks event could cost a minimum of £700 I also have the issue of narrowing down to such a select few as we wont be able to invite more than 25 people if we want to keep the budget under £1,000 I thought of many ideas like having a personal chef come over. I found a few people who sounded interesting but I realise that it is a great idea if you have a big house and everyone can eat around some tables. Perhaps I’ll leave that for a housewarming party one day. I also considered booking Ping Pong. The Waterloo branch has an upstairs drinks area and on saturday lunch, the usually empty the area. So if you book it, it could look pretty exclusive. Ping Pong is known to be very stylish at reasonable prices. 

My mother has been really excited about the engagement and wants to throw an engagement party for us when we visit. I’ve been thinking that it might be a good idea to have a grand engagement party in India as we could go all out and make it very luxurious and grand for a fraction of what we pay in London. Since I was raised in India, it would only be appropriate that we celebrated our engagement in India and did our wedding in London. We could invite our close friends and those who want to make the effort will be well taken care of once they land in India. I really want to go all out and do everything that I want for a wedding but cannot afford in London.  I mentioned to my fiance that I even wanted firecrackers. At the same time, we said ‘… like in ‘Meet Joe Black’  

I mentioned the Indian engagement party to my fiance’s family and suprisingly, his sisters and parents were really interested and asked us to look for tickets and arrange it. I didnt expect his father to be so interested since he hates traveling and has been sick. I was quite touched that they wanted to make the effort. I was even more touched when Ray (my fiance’s best friend) expressed interest in going to India. His wife brought out the calender and immediately told me the dates that work well with her. I just have the feeling that if all goes well, we could end up having a lovely holiday together

We visited Ray and I asked to see his wedding pictures for some ideas for our wedding. In enquired about their chair cushions and they said they paid £600 for just renting them. I almost fell off my own chair because I could not believe this. Basically, it just seems like a little piece of cloth tied around a chair like this: 

But I realise that there is probably a lot of work into finding the right material, stitching it and then wrapping it around each chair meticulously. But surely to rent the damn cloth would not cost as much as a 40 inch TV.  Anyways, I wonder if I could make these chair covers in India as material is very cheap and I could get bespoke service. I’ve taken the view that if I can outsource anything to India, I will. 

One of the other items I realised I could outsource is our wedding invitation cards. Ray said it costs him £200 to get 75 wedding invitations made at John Lewis. My fiance and I found these businesses in India that do these creative wedding invites from this website: http://www.regalcards.com/designer_card.asp?pg_no=1

Do you think its a bit pompous to have our wedding invite on a scroll? I think its unique and creative! 

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