Saree Dress Up Games for Indian Wedding

An Indian wedding is all about the families of the bride and groom coming together. And more so, with the times changing, both the bride and groom in fact bond with their own relatives for the very first time as most of the relatives travel from far and wide, some even across continents, just so to attend the wedding.And what better way to bond than by playing games! Wedding party games are an organized part of the entire wedding scenario where sometimes just the bride’s family, or the groom’s family, play at their own respective places or come together for a certain ceremony and play a few games to break the ice.

The most common ones, of course, are–detecting the groom’s name in the Mehendi, or the ritual of finding the groom’s shoes, or dipping your hands in a bowl of sindoori water and finding the wedding ring. Of course, all of these are classic games that can never quite be replaced with things too modern, yet, with the advent of social media, and the DJ culture, antakshari and dance games have taken center stage like never before.

Sangeet, Mehandi  and the ring ceremony are occasions in the North Indian weddings, wherein a great amount of time is spent doing a round of karaoke or in playing a musical game of sorts. So is there a game that could be traditional, but not boringly so, and yet be something that would be enjoyed across generations-the kind that could be as relevant for the aunts, the nieces, the grandmothers and the dolled up bachelorettes? Sure! There are some truly dramatically innovative, exciting and fun filled games that are simple, and involve a basic ingredient –the saree.

Why the sari? Well, quite honestly, there is no Indian girl worth her Kanjeevaram who is not in love with this drape, and though, the younger generation may dither a great deal, ultimately will succumb to the glorious look of this traditional Indian wear.

Here are some great ideas to get going on your saree inspired wedding party games.

Pleats Please!

Well, quite frankly-this is one game for nimble fingers and those who wish to play this game must be the usual butter fingers-the kind who are far from being nimble-fingered. Choose men who are big built and have never tried anything like this in their lives. Get a bunch of enthusiastic male contenders and a few sarees.

So the objective of the game is to place a timer and see how many pleats can a single individual make in one or two minutes flat. The points for judging the winner:

• How many pleats
• How well and how equally the pleats have been formed
• How many sarees in all have been pleated
• And whether the pleats have been secured at the end with a pin.

Truly a fantastic game for women to sit and watch as their husbands struggle with the yards of endless looking drape. Yes, how else can a woman get back to her husband who understands very little about the intricacies of wearing a saree and pinning it up in Olympic record speed?!!

One can either call the contestant one by one or you could have numerous sarees collected from all-of course not very expensive ones.

As You Like it

A compatibility game in which the bride and the groom cannot see each other’s reaction to a saree that is on display.  So either one can play this in the form of large screen projection-showing some really pretty sarees or wearing styles or some terrible ones and each time a picture is flashed on the screen, the groom and the bride will hold up their respective placards. The placards would have two sides-one saying- Superb! And the other side saying- Awful! Two words that will spill the beans on their taste compatibility in clothes.

Well, a test that most will enjoy playing as the cost has to be paid by the stars of the moment-the couple to be married!

Saree Gaane

How can any marriage be complete without songs and what better way to get all going on a great game than a song based quiz albeit using the saree as an inspiration.Here too what we need, of course, are pictures that will be flashed across the screen and we could form two teams-one of  the brides and the other from the groom’s side. All that has to be done is that one has to identify the name or type of that saree-or maybe the embroidery done on that- and the question could be which saree is it and followed by any question related to that saree-could be about food, tourist spot or any song that reminds one of that state to which it belongs.

Example-Phulkari saree – the question could be- state to which it belongs, followed by-do a famous dance step from the same state; and the next could be Bengal tant and then followed by a question on a song composed by a Bengali lyricist-etc.

One for the Bride

Creativity knows no bounds when it comes to weddings and girls are at their creative and ‘rivalrous’ best too!Here is one that will surely get the Mehandi reach its pinnacle of fun! Create two teams and all that the teams have to do is to take as many sarees as they can and make a teammate(chosen from amongst them)dress up-she should, of course, be dressed up with additional jewelry that their team mates who lend to doll her up in the given amount of time-maybe three minutes and make her look like a queen. Then the judging in terms of appearance will commence by the elders in the congregation or by a voice vote-this is one game that I sure to get maximum catcalls and whistles.

Copy Cat

Here’s a game of challenge wherein the test is in copying the saree drape to perfection, or close!Well, once again a draping style will be shown in the form of a video. One could choose several ethnic styles for this-maybe the Coorg style or the Bengali drape and the contestants have to get it right after watching the video just twice. Each contestant gets a saree which she has to drape. There could be two teams and each team member must participate and the total points scored will be based on how close one gets to get the look.

Image credits–  http://pinterest.com