Besides the regular furniture and saree stalls the expo introduced new wedding trends for the visitors.
The fresh add to this year’s expo was a stall of professional wedding planner, a relatively new concept for Nepalis. Along with the modern wedding planners, traditional astrologers also had their stalls set up.
Recently started, Wedding Nepal, the wedding ceremony planning company, had its four staffs mobilized at the Expo. Informing about the latest data, one of the stall attendants Usha Shrestha said, “About 50 people have registered so far in my stall.”
“As previous years, this year too, the 4th Wedding & Gift Expo 2009 has been conceptualized with the aim to cater the ever-growing needs and demands for a comprehensive solution to wedding ceremony,” said Pashupati K.C, the manager and event co-coordinator of Direction Nepal.
Anuroopa B. Gupta, India based jewelry designer has also arrived in the capital for the expo. Her stall has a range of collection from intricately designed colorful jewelries a girl would love to get her hands on even though she just likes admiring the jewelries rather than wearing it, to simple ones.
“Most of my collections are silver plated with 18k gold,” Anuroopa added, “This collection is mainly aimed for the wedding attendees because buying a new set of gold jewelries for every new ceremony and wearing the same set is not practical.” Her collection price ranged from Rs. 2, 000 to Rs.15, 000.
“People have surely liked the product, but most of the people come to visit expos just to observe and are not prepared to buy,” said Anuroopa, when asked about the sale.
Along with Indian designs, traditional Newari ornaments such as Taaya (necklace), Teek Mala (necklace) and Lusnta (head ornament) were on display in the stall of The Moon collection. “This Expo is a marriage between conserving our tradition and fulfilling the modern needs. Thus, we have incorporated the new concepts and the traditional costumes.”
The first day of the Expo exhibited twelve models attired in typical Hindu bridal dress and a few in Newari jewelries. “We had this particular event to let the attendees know how a bride can don traditional looks,” informed Pashupati.
These days the rise of Chatti, traditional Newari flat sandals, in the typical Nepali weddings and daily life is mushrooming. No surprise that Chatti embroidered with sequins and beads of different colors were aplenty in two of the stalls in expo. “It’s not only the flat Chattis, there are the ones with the heels too, if a bride wants to add that extra height,” added Sushma Pradhan.
Lady visitors also had a chance to explore the variety of designs of Mehendi (application of Henna as a temporary form of skin decoration). Decorating hands and legs with mehendi designs is a growing trend amongst ladies and these days, the practices is picking up in the capital thanks to cable network soap operas. A handful of girls were also lined up trying out mehendi designs in the stall of Mumbai Mehendi Training Center, Dillibazar.
The proprietor of the mehendi training center Kuldeep Basrnya claimed, “In a day he had about 600 ladies who decorated their hands in mehendi at his stall. The rise in trend of mehendi is also evident from the roads of New Road, where the number of mehendi designers and admirers of have increased.
Kuldeep Basrnya is an example of how mehendi trend is catching up in the valley. He started his career as a mehendi designer from roads of Kathmandu eight years back and now he is the trainer and owner of Mumbai Mehendi Training Center. He adds, “Gradually, decorating hands and legs with mehendi has attracted Nepali brides as well.”
Along with the stalls, a photo exhibition of different prominent figures of Nepal during their weddings brought the beautiful vibe that weddings’ possess. From Dr. Bhola Rijal’s black and white photo, where he and his counterpart participate in traditional wedding ceremony to the student leader of ANNISU (R) Lekhnath Neupane’s communist style wedding, all of them evoke the feeling of joy of getting married.
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