What is Garba and Raas

In Indian weddings, Garba refers to a pre-wedding dance event. Garba and Raas (and so many more) are folk dances originating from the Gujrati part of India. The Garba and Raas (Raas being part of the dance done while hitting sticks together) are very energetic group dance event that circle around a centrepiece. The dance lasts for hours! Note: While both dances were done, we are referring to the event as just “Garba”.

Garba typically takes place the night before the wedding ceremony. To break from tradition, Sonia and James’ Garba occurred the morning of the wedding ceremony.

This means we had to set/manage/strike and set/manage/strike two large events (and start setting for a 3rd…more on that later) in the same room in 1 day!

This is a post in a series. Jump to the other links below for context:

Introduction and general design concept

Mehndi party

*This wedding occurred before Covid-19

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Garba floral centrepiece

The Garba centrepiece was simple, yet effective. Using the same colours and on-theme flowers as the Mehndi event, Lyn and her team created a giant anchor flower arrangement using Monstera leaves with trailing marigold garland, plus several smaller coordinating arrangements.

Small puffs of coloured baby’s breath were placed at the base, mixed with varying size vases of floating candles. James’ mom scouted vases and various baskets from garage sales and stores for holding the dandiya sticks that added a fun, Boho look.

All of this came together in a beautiful centrepiece that was fast to set and strike (a key factor here) but had a big impact!

Lively dancing from every guest

Everyone, and I mean everyone, was dancing at this event! It was amazing to see everyone from every walk of life dancing enthusiastically. The dancing went on for a couple hours straight, then everyone stopped for  lunch. We set tables on one side of the room in a gradient of “morning colours” to reflect the Sunrise/Sunset theme.

One good thing about a dance event? Guests were so tired from dancing that all 300 of them cleared the room in record time. Because of this, we were immediately able to start flipping the room for the Ceremony.

Take time to gawk at all the colour and life in these photos, and tune in to the next post on how we created the Hindu ceremony details.

Planning, Design + Management: Evelyn Clark Weddings | Photography: Sarah Pukin | Venue: The Westin (downtown)| Flowers: Flower Artistry | Decor rentals: Modern Rentals and Special Event Rentals | HMUA: Roopstyle and MaisonBlu| Paper: Plush Invitations | Lighting and audio: Stardust Event Group | Henna: SKM Henna and Abeer and Henna by Raj and and Carefully Crafted | Band: Sa-Re Music