The first and the only Haldi ceremony that I have attended till date was in 2009 when I had visited Haldia, West Bengal, for my Bengali Friend’s wedding. It started with prayers by the priest and her maternal uncle after which women applied turmeric on my friend. In the end we all played with turmeric water having fun and toasting to her upcoming wedding.
Recently I was contacted by a client from England asking me to make flower jewelry for a muslim “Gaye Holud” ceremony. I knew that Gaye Holud was similar to haldi but was surprised to know that Muslims follow it too. In my research, later, I found that Gaye Holud is a Bengali custom— celebrated by both Hindus and Muslims from both India as well as Bangladesh. It is a pre-wedding ritual when the groom’s family visits the bride and presents her with her sweets, wedding clothes and jewelry and sometimes two fishes that are dressed up like a couple.Â
Traditionally people put up a stage or some background fabric decorations if done at home but these days you can find folks going for elaborate dos and themed/color coded parties filed with musical performances, dance and merry making. My friend’s Haldi (we didnt even call it Gaye Holud then) in contrast was a very simple affair with close friends and family, ofcourse followed by a lot of food. However it is conducted, events such as this, in my opinion, help connect the families of the bride and groom together, as in India, you dont marry a person, you marry a family!
  Coming back to set in question, my client wanted a red and white set to match with her Red and white theme and after a lot of discussion we added some gold to it for a royal look. Red, like I discussed in one of my earlier posts, is considered a very auspicious color and hence is very popular choice for wedding jewelry. But I do hope that, soon, I would get an opportunity to work with other colors.
Gaye Holud Jewellery
This set in red, white and gold comprises of a short, choker necklace, a long necklace, a pair of earrings, double strand bracelet style Haath Phool and a grand 3 line matha patti.
Remember the seematham real flower set where I talked about making a grand matha patti for the first time? Well, the experience really helped me with this set as this one was even more complicated. The design in consideration have 2 focals and in total 9 strands of beads, three each coming out in three different directions. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to do it. If the beads stayed on the forehead the flowers would droop down and when the flowers stayed put the beads were weird. I made it 4 times before it turned out decent looking as you can see in the picture below. I just hope, with fingers crossed, that it looks good on the Bride or all this effort would have been for naught.
To order a custom made Gaye Holud Jewellery set please mail me at jewelsofsauri(at)gmail(dot)com
Read FAQ Here for more details on the design and ordering process.
I hope you found it interesting
Cheers
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