When planning your wedding, how do you decide what you want the ceremony to look like? Let’s discuss popular themes and decor elements that might help give you some ideas for your own wedding.

Hindu Wedding Themes

While you don’t need a wedding theme, some couples find that it helps to have a starting point for deciding on your wedding’s decorations. The freedom of starting with a blank slate can be debilitating, which is why, sometimes, having a guideline inspires more creativity than no rules at all.

Popular Hindu Wedding Themes to Guide Your Planning

Fairytale

Weddings with a fairytale theme tend to go all in on the fantasy. Chandeliers, mezzanines, flowers and lights like stars are typical decorations. Softer colors like pastels are a common palette choice for decor and the sari. Some couples even have fairytale-esque music in their playlist to dance to at the Sangeet.

Royalty

If you don’t want to feel like a princess, maybe you want to feel like a queen. If so, having a royal theme might be ideal. From booking a resplendent venue (such as the CrystalView Ballroom) to contracting live Shehnai and Nagada players instead of a DJ, there are plenty of ways to make your ceremony seem more regal. Heavy silver embroidery work and jewelry will also help strengthen the concept.

Rajasthani

Rajasthani is a popular theme for Hindu weddings thanks to its colorful nature and animated regional props influenced by Rajasthani culture. Decorations include clay pots, sculptures, windchimes, vases, drapes and wooden figurines. Rajasthani also centers on gold, such as wearing Gota or Kundan jewelry or gold embroidery. You can entertain guests with a puppet show or a Rajasthani folk song. 

Lucknowi

If you’re inspired by imperial Mughal details, a Lucknowi theme might make for the perfect wedding. This theme emphasizes the antique and historic. Booking an elegant venue or heritage property, wearing Lucknowi chikan and decorating with heirloom chandeliers and red roses will help highlight this Nawabi dream.

Of course, even with a theme, there are no strict décor rules. You can play with the idea as you see fit and make the details all your own.

Hindu Wedding Decorations

Whether you decide to go with a theme or not, the decorations themselves are where you and your partner's personalities can shine. And it’s that way by design, as Hindu weddings place a heavier importance on decorations than weddings in Western culture.

Floral Arrangements

Flowers are everywhere in the ceremony, from the mandap to the bride’s jewelry, hair and henna artwork. The bride and groom exchange floral garlands instead of rings, representing the promise between them and the sacred bond they now share.

Because of their symbolic importance, the flowers you select will have an explicit meaning. Popular flower options for Hindu weddings have meanings ranging from:

• Chrysanthemums = optimism and life-long joy
• Jasmine = good luck, success and prosperity
• Delphiniums = love, care and an open heart
• Tuberoses = happiness and pleasure
• Daisies = loyalty, love and innocence

Mandaps

A mandap is an elevated platform that’s covered in lively decorations that highlight the sacred nature of the ceremony. Under the mandap, the bride and the groom will say their vows and kindle a small fire as a witness to their vows to each other and to signify their desire for future happiness through offerings. 

Mandaps can be decorated with anything: flowers, vines, silk drapes, gold, gems and more (not to mention the various chair options for the bride and groom). Whether you want to go for a grandiose, rustic, vivid or florid aesthetic, there are many different ways to customize your mandap so it’s specific to you and your partner.

Rangoli Designs

Rangoli designs are colorful patterns drawn on the floor using rice grains, flower petals, beans or sand. They are a staple of Hindu culture and can be drawn anywhere from a wedding to a sidewalk. Rangoli designs represent good luck, prosperity and family – both your old family and the new one you’ll make.

The patterns feature a variety of potential images. Some standard designs for Hindu weddings include Ganesh, flowers, stars, lotuses, Mandala and peacocks.

The Team at CrystalView Will Help You Fully Customize One of Our Ballrooms for Any Event

However you choose to design your wedding, we at CrystalView will help ensure the venue looks just how you imagined it. We’ll help you fully customize one of our elegant ballrooms with high-quality wedding decor while providing top-rated catering service, sound equipment, complimentary valet and a host of other additional services so that everything goes smoothly.

Call us at (703) 218-4444 or visit our website to schedule a tour and book a date.