Our Big Fat Indian Wedding: The Final Countdown

Four days before the wedding, we headed down to Jay's parent's house in Germantown MD.

We got up early the next morning to get our marriage license,

...and get pedicures with my mom, her best friend, and my mother and sister in-laws (I'm so sad I can't find the photo with us all together!):

While we were at the nail salon, I also took the opportunity to get my arms waxed for my bridal mehendi. I've never had my arms waxed before, and it was surprisingly not painful, though I felt weirdly naked afterward.

Later in the day, my mehendi artist came over to do my bridal mehendi, as well as some mehendi for my mother and sister-in-law. 

Since applying the bridal mehendi is actually a traditional ceremony preceding the wedding, I had to wear a head covering for the first portion of the application:

We started the process with my feet:

...And then moved to one arm...

In between appendages, was a few breaks, a lot of drying time, and mehendi for my mother and sister in law. My mother in law's hands:

Toward the end of the application, some of my family visiting from out of town showed up, and then shortly after, my bridesmaid Amy arrived after driving ten hours (!!!!) from Nashville. (From left to right: my mom, my mehendi artist, me, my sister-in-law, my mom's cousin, and my mom's best friend)

Overall, the entire application took about three hours (not including breaks) -- it turned out incredible, and was well worth it though! That night, I fell asleep with the drying mehendi which mostly stayed in tact overnight, minus a few flakes. In the morning, I sat on the front steps of my in-law's house and used a butterknife to literally scrape the remnants off. It was a wonderful, peaceful, solitary moment, early in the morning, with only the chirping birds for company. It was nice to have some alone time, for just a few minutes, and soak up the feelings leading up to our marriage.

After scraping off all the chunks of henna and showering off the remnants, we headed down to Virginia for a final meeting with our venue coordinator (or as I like to refer to her, our "badass wedding ninja savior angel.")

Afterward, Jenn arrived from NY and my mom and mom-in-law helped me work on some finishing touches for one of my dresses (aka major alterations aka panic-inducing sewing crunch-time.) We got most of it done, and then we all spent the remainder of the afternoon getting ready for our mehendi party.