#FirstPerson: I Created My Own Bridal Lehenga...

While the idea of designing your own bridal lehenga might be exciting, it also sounds helluva scary! While a lot of brides customise their lehenga with the help of their trusted tailor or a designer, not many do the whole process right from scratch. Here is a bride who put her fashion designing skills to use and made her own bridal lehenga, which turned out to be beautiful! So over to Pooja Warrier, who tells us all about it!

Choosing the perfect lehenga for your wedding is a cumbersome task, but, if you're a fashion designer, then what's better than designing your own wedding lehenga? COVID postponed plans of launching my label, so when it came to planning my wedding, I thought what better way to start than this! 

I always dreamed of what my wedding day would be like, and being a designer I knew exactly what I wanted to wear. I wanted to move away from the traditional reds to something in pink. Picked out the perfect shade of pink after a few samples. 

It was easier to get things done as I already had my masters, tailors and karigars who I had known and worked with over the years.
My lehenga is in the traditional raw silk fabric way. I was always fascinated with the delicate and feminine styles. And florals were my absolute favourite and that’s what I chose to go ahead with. And designing it was super super fun. The lovely pink lehenga is embroidered in silk thread and embellished with glass beading, crystals, sequins, pearls, amalgamated with the royal zardosi embroidery. It’s a mix of modern and traditional.

There’s so much love and effort that’s been poured into it, I can’t be happier with the final look. 

To balance the whole look I accessorised with a simple kundan necklace with emerald hangings, matching stud earrings and a Mangtikka. And, for my make-up, I kept it glowy with pink smokey eyes, highlighted cheeks and soft pink lips. Messy Braided hair with beautiful white and pink hydrangeas. 

While picking an outfit of the rack gives you a glimpse of what the final outcome will be, there is a different sense of magic in customising your bridal outfit. Your outfit is your own in terms of the details that go into making it and it reflects who you are as a bride on your most special day. 

Tips for brides who want to customise their bridal outfits:

• I’d highly encourage brides to design their own bridal outfits as we have a clear vision as brides in knowing what we want and what the final look should be. Not all labels, designers, stores offer customising at the same time staying within the budget and sometimes brides end up compromising in one or two things. But in designing it ourselves we eliminate that problem altogether.
• Start with a vision of what it is you want the finished look to feel like, colours, textures, work how heavy or light, and it always helps to know what suits your body type or personally what makes you feel confident and comfortable in. Because at the end of the day your comfort is of utmost importance if you’re going to adorn the outfit for 6 hours straight.
• Explore your options of colours. Try and try until you find what you like best on yourself.
• Create samples be it colours , fabrics, embroidery.
• You can choose to custom create your own embroidery design like I did or there are karigars who will get it designed for you.
• The quality of craftsmanship is imperative. That’s one thing I never compromised on. Be it fabric or the embroidery and materials used, the masters and karigars. These are the structural backbones of your vision coming to life.
• And most importantly have fun while you’re at it. Our most special day made even more special with all the love and effort that goes into making the most iconic outfit of our life.

Courtesy Bride @poojakwarrier

Vendors: Photography: The Cheesecake Project★ 4.8 ; MUA: Meraki by Ritika★ 4.6 ; Hair: Vidyaa Hairstylist; Outfit: @poojaklabel; Jewellery : Hem Jewellers, Bandra