Marwari weddings go on, and they go big. Across the mehendi, the sangeet, the pheras, the milni and the reception, a Marwari groom can easily need five separate outfits, and the tradition has a real appetite for the best cloth going: Banarasi brocade, fine velvet, heavy silk. These are the largest wedding commissions we take at Sellers, and we always plan the full set at the first sitting rather than making them one at a time as the dates come around.
Planning five Marwari outfits as one wardrobe
Treat the whole thing as one commission, not five errands. The colours, the cloth quality and the level of embroidery should either run consistently across the events or step up deliberately towards the pheras. Decide that on day one. Buy them piecemeal over four months from four different places and the album will show it: five outfits that never met each other.
A typical Marwari commission here might run a festive kurta-bandi for the mehendi, a strong-coloured sherwani or bandhgala for the sangeet, an ivory brocade sherwani for the pheras, a Jodhpuri for the milni, and a fine silk bandhgala for the reception dinner. We map all five against each other at the first consultation, then cut them in a planned order so nothing is being rushed in the last fortnight.
Banarasi brocade, velvet and the heavier Marwari weaves
Marwari wedding dress has a long attachment to Banarasi cloth, both the silk and the brocade. Many Marwari trading families had Varanasi connections going back generations, and the taste for those weaves stayed put. A Banarasi brocade sherwani for the pheras, brought in from our Varanasi suppliers and cut here in Adyar, is about as correct as a traditional Marwari groom's ceremony outfit gets.
Velvet is the other favourite and it belongs to the evening events. A deep jewel-tone velvet sherwani or bandhgala in burgundy, midnight navy or emerald for the sangeet is a distinctly Marwari choice, and it photographs with a depth under stage lighting that no flat cloth will give you. Keep it to the cooler months if the wedding is anywhere south of Hyderabad.