This is part four, the last of a series of blog entries titled The Sari Experience. My good friend, Sabrina had an Indian wedding ceremony and I wore a sari to the event. I’ve written about my sari experiences; shopping for it, the fitting and finally the wedding. I hope you enjoyed reading these entries and come away with a few pointers should you have to get your own sari.

** Related blog entries:

•  The sari experience, part one: the preview 
• The sari experience, part two: shopping and choosing my first sari 
• The sari experience, part three: tailoring and the one minute sari

The final sari look

Ta da! What do you think? I’m quite happy with the entire look. Initially, I was worried that wearing a lot of embellishment – beading on the sari and choli, and jewellery – would be overpowering and I’d be lost in the outfit, but everything turned out really well.

I gave myself a lot of time to get ready for the wedding as I wasn’t quite sure if recreating the one minute sari look would happen in one minute. In actuality it took me 10 minutes to get the sari the way I wanted it; untangling myself once or twice in all the fabric, safety pinning places here and there, wrapping and rewrapping the sari so it would sit just right around my body.

As you look at the pictures, the sari doesn’t appear to consist of five metres of fabric but trust me it does. My mobility was limited and therefore I had to adopt a bit more patience and care than usual getting in and out of a car, walking up and down stairs while holding the sari so you don’t trip and go flying, and making sure the fabric didn’t catch or tear in the entire process.

Sabrina’s wedding was beautiful and I had a culturally enriching experience. It was a Hindu wedding ceremony and many sacred rituals (17 in total) were performed by the bride, groom and their families. The highlight of the night was being asked to participate in the jaimala, a portion of the ceremony where the bride is accompanied by her parents to the altar to meet the groom. Here, a group of Sabrina’s friends (me included) danced behind her and her parents to Indian drumming down the aisle. It was very memorable and a ton of fun, I wish I had my camera with me at that moment. Doh! 

Sari preparation tips on the day of the wedding:

• Putting on the one minute sari is fairly manageable; however, make sure to keep a handful of safety pins at the ready. There’s the likely chance you’ll be making adjustments to the positioning and draping of the fabric.
• Manoeuvring in a five metre piece of cloth isn’t easy, allow yourself plenty of time to get ready, in and out of a car, and the bathroom
• Speaking of the bathroom, be careful with all that fabric when you go to the toilet

This is part three of a series of blog entries titled The Sari Experience. My good friend, Sabrina is having an Indian wedding ceremony and I get to wear a sari to the event. I’ll be writing a series of blog entries about my sari experiences; shopping for it, the fitting and finally the wedding. I hope you enjoy reading these entries and come away with a few pointers should you have to get your own sari.

** Related blog entries:

•  The sari experience, part one: the preview 
• The sari experience, part two: shopping and choosing my first sari 

Tailoring and the one minute sari

GTA Mall is a one stop shopping centre for all things sari. I was lucky enough to purchase all the components for my sari within 45 minutes of walking into the first two stores: petticoat, material for the choli and jewellery. To complete the outfit I had to visit a tailor who could create the choli and sew a one minute sari.

What is a one minute sari? The sari fabric is sewn together with several hook–and-eye closures, is pre-pleated making it one size fits all and lessens the stress of having to pleat all five meters of the fabric by yourself. As a result, you have a ready-to-wear garment where you literally wrap the sari material around your waist, throw the fabric over your shoulder and voila, you’re ready to go.

There are several tailors in the mall so Sabrina and I randomly picked one on the second floor, Crown Tailoring. My seamstress was Chitra who has over 20 years of experience creating saris. It typically takes her 1.5 hours to create a sari and choli, however it would be two weeks before I could pick mine up as it was wedding season and she had a lot of customers waiting for theirs to be made.

Chitra demonstrates how to put on a one minute sari

After two weeks I came back to pick up my choli and sari. Chirta had everything ready and I fit both pieces. I’m definitely a novice when it comes to Indian dress as I put the choli on backwards giving Chitra and I a very good laugh. The bill came up to $48 for both the choli and the one minute sari.

Sari tailoring tips:

• Make sure to give yourself plenty of time to get the choli and sari made, because wedding season is very busy and it could take a while to have yours completed
• The choli is very fitted so don’t wear a heavily padded bra or plan to wear one
• Make sure all sections of the choli fits well, especially around the arms, bust and torso

Crown Tailoring, GTA Square Mall, 5215 Finch Ave East, Suite 215, Toronto, Ontario M1C 02C

(416) 609-2532

This is part two of a series of blog entries titled The Sari Experience – cheesy title I know, but I couldn’t come up with a better name at the time.

My good friend, Sabrina is having an Indian wedding ceremony and I get to wear a sari to the event. I’ll be writing a series of blog entries about my sari experience; shopping for it, the fitting and finally the wedding. I hope you enjoy reading these entries and come away with a few pointers should you have to get your own sari.

** Related blog entry – The sari experience, part one: the preview

Shopping for and choosing my sari

First, when buying a sari be advised to have a budget; how much you’re willing to spend in total, this includes the sari, jewellery, tailoring, etc. Originally, my budget was approximately $200 for the sari alone but after speaking with a few people realized that was too much money. Good saris could be had for less even as little as $75 depending on what you choose, the type of fabric and how well you haggle the price.                                        

Sabrina accompanied me on my very first sari shopping trip and needless to say I was glad to have her guide me through the process; venturing into unknown fashion territory can be a little intimidating. We met at a shopping mall called, GTA Square Mall.

As luck would have it the first store we went into had a ton of saris to choose from. It was a little daunting at first, because there were so many designs and colours. Not to get overwhelmed I quickly grazed over the stock and picked out saris which instantly caught my eye - mostly by colour. I chose saris in jewel tones and debated between, fuschia and blue for several minutes. Ultimately, I decided on a royal blue sari with white gold sequin and circular designs all over. The process took around 20 to 30 minutes.

To complete the entire sari outfit I bought a petticoat to be worn under the sari and fabric to create the choli (blouse), all from MJS Fashions. We continued the same colour scheme (royal blue) into my jewellery choices purchasing a necklace, earrings, bangles and bindi from Ambiha Silk.

Some sari shopping tips:

• Have a budget in mind
• Know what colours look good on you
• Don’t be afraid to haggle the price
• Silk saris are expensive and don’t always create soft folders when you wear it, they’re harder to pleat so opt for polyester material
• Commit to the look from head to toe; jewellery, bindi and all. It may be more elaborate that what you’re used to wearing but as they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Location: GTA Square Mall, 5215 Finch Ave East, Toronto, Ontario M1C 02C

• MJS Fashion, Suite 113, (416) 299-1630
• Ambiha Silk, Suite 122, (416) 297-5261

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Weddings are a happy time celebrating the union between two people who love each other, but the dirty little secret is weddings are met with mixed emotions; a little fear, joy and frustration. You have to buy multiple gifts, attend multiple events or if you’re a bridesmaid be forced to wear a god awful, butt ugly dress for the ceremony – trust me, I know from firsthand experience.

However, these things get interesting when you attend a non-Western wedding. In a few weeks I’ll be going to my first Indian wedding ceremony, my good friend Sabrina is getting married and I get to wear a sari to the event. I’m extremely excited at the opportunity to go – we went to university together, swapped relationship advice and skipped philosophy lectures for extended lunches at Mr. Greeks.

I’ll be writing a series of blog entries about my sari experience; shopping for it, the fitting and finally the wedding. Now, let it be known I am (by no means) an expert on saris or choosing one, but I hope my blog posts will shed a little light, expand your fashion knowledge and serve as a reference in case you have to shop for a sari in the near future. So to start things off below are a few images previewing what’s to come.