Planning a desi wedding in North America can be hard. You can’t just have everything prepared from beforehand and things aren’t readily available everywhere. We have ideas that you can have Dholki preparations that are fun and easy to plan for.
First things get planning for decoration
You don’t have to have major decorations but if you have any eastern dupattas from previous weddings you might want to hand them up to get festive. You can also get some fake flowers from amazon or a temple store. Get some Diyas as well and put tea lights in them.
Have a picture frame area. Have a wooden plank up with pictures of the bride and groom. You can also keep a polaroid camera there and have people take pictures during the event. Photos make everything so much better!
Buy a yellow bedsheet from amazon or if you have one in your closet well plus points for you. Lay it on the floor and that’s where people can sit and have some fun.
You can put some net and flowers on the staircase and have it going down it looks elegant and beautiful. If you like you can have an area where it is more white wedding like and another area that is bright and coloured screaming desi dholki!
Now for food for dholki preparations
Ahhh the food! The most important part. You want some snacky food as that is what Dholkis are all about. Get some chaat, pani puri and bun kebab and you are good.
Chaat
For chaat, you can make it funky by putting it in a martini glass. On the rim, you can put some chaat masala, and inside have the chaat. Make it look pretty by putting coriander, green chillies, and chaat on top. As the martini stick, you can put chickpeas on it or some sort of puri to add that extra touch. I saw this on Instagram and it is called Chatini.
Paani puri shots
Buy some shot glasses put some pani puri pani in them and on top put the puri with the chickpeas. This is a fun way to have pani puri make at least one for each guest of yours. You can keep the rest as normal Pani Puri. Some people in this like to add vodka if you are having a dholki with alcohol that is a great idea.
Other things you can have are samosa and bun kebab keep your menu simple yet interesting.
For drinks you can make some mint lemonade you can check out our recipe for that!
Activities
Music
Now that we have focused on decoration and food let’s get to the activities portion. Create a dholki music playlist beforehand with all the old school and the new Bollywood songs.
Prepare and get a dhol beforehand you can borrow from someone or find it online. Some people rent out dhols for a day and other things like Dhandia and tambourine. So you can go all out or keep it simple with just a dhol. Think of songs beforehand that can be sung on the dhol. People might have to use their phone to google the lyrics as nowadays no one knows all the lyrics to the songs they only know 2 lines.
Have some dances. Whatever you have been practicing for the big day you can have an informal practice of that. Aunties love to see a preshow.
Ubtan
Get some Ubtan and you can have a feature of a Mayun into this event. Make sure everyone knows from before and the bride or groom’s skin will not react to this. Try it on a small portion of their skin beforehand.
Get some firecrakers/phuljari. From the dollar store, you can get them pretty cheap. This can be a fun activity for the kids and add to the festivities.
Mehndi
Call a woman over to put some mehndi. Make it even more festive by calling someone over to put mehndi on people’s hands. This can be its own function but you can add it to a small dholki as well.
Fireworks
Either end the night with some fireworks if it is allowed in your area or buy the hand fire cracker sticks that kids can also use. This can be entertaining if there are small kids around.
Get started with Dholki preparations
Now that you have all the ideas for a fun small in-house dholki you can go execute. These are great for covid where you want to invite limited people but still have some wedding celebrations.
