You can see the feature here.
My sweet baby, Jasper, turned six months old recently. Ashley was delightful enough to take photos of us, and I’m in turn sharing a few with all of you since we offer several maternity/baby packages, including a maternity+newborn and a maternity+newborn+3-12 months.
You might remember Davonna, Rob, and their daughters, Dallas and Dakota, from their family session a few weeks back. Well, last Saturday we shot their absolutely gorgeous vow renewal ceremony. The two have been married for five years, and, to paraphrase Davonna’s spur-of-the-moment vows, even though Rob still doesn’t put the dirty laundry in the hamper, we’re incredibly grateful that we got to share this experience with them. As two wives ourselves, we understand the commitment and patience that comes with married love, and consider these two perfect examples of all that is true and beautiful about marriage.
Amy and Randell are the dream White Rabbit Studios couple: creative, energetic, and slightly offbeat–all things that we love! We were super excited when we met with the two of them, as their love and affection for one another is more than obvious and makes for an excellent photo-taking environment.
Amy brought tons of props with her, including a picnic basket, flowers from their garden, and, just to make the picnic authentic, a bottle of wine. We ventured to Monte Sano first, and then to the backyard of a friend who has a gigantic, and brilliant, red barn that was just sitting there, waiting for us to shoot it.
Since Amy and Randell will be married next month, and we met the two of them too late to book it, we won’t get to shoot the wedding. However, we loved this session and getting the chance to get to know them.
Rob and Miranda were married this past Saturday at the Botanical Gardens in Huntsville. This location was awesome for both Ashley and I as this is the location Ashley shot her first wedding, and I had never shot there before! We’re both huge fans of gardens, flowers, and nature in general, and were beyond excited that we got to capture Rob and Miranda’s big day at the gardens.
Rob and Davonna’s obvious love and adoration for one another combined with Dakota and Dallas’s very obvious love and adoration for the camera made this session nice, easy, and enjoyable for all (at least we hope so!). We’re really excited to shoot Rob and Davonna’s vow renewal next month!
Ashley and I have been busy brainstorming all kinds of plans for White Rabbit Studios–everything from related blogs, new site designs, business cards, etc.–, and with all of that excitement it completely slipped my mind to blog the last day of Chirag and Nancy’s wedding!
Stephanie
In all of the flurry and excitement surrounding the wedding events, we’ve neglected to introduce you to Chirag and Nancy, the man and woman at the center of the entire wedding! So, without further ado..
I blogged about the Pithi ceremony the other day, and now here’s information about Chirag and Nancy’s Mameru and Garba ceremonies that took place later in the evening!
“The custom of ‘mameru’ originated centuries ago when there were no legal rights existing for daughters. It was customary for the parents to start making provisions for their daughter by gifting her with things on occasions like ‘rakshabandhan’ or ‘bhaibheej’. These gifts accumulated as ’streedhan’ (daughter’s wealth).
When the girl grows up and gets married, the ‘mama’ or maternal uncle comes with the ‘mameru’ consisting of clothes, jewellery and other gifts items including the traditional ‘paanetar’ (silk wedding sari – usually white with red border) and ‘choodo’ (ivory bangle – now replaced with acrylic or plastic). The ‘mameru’ ceremony takes place one day before the wedding.”
As you may expect, Nancy and Chirag’s wedding had a slightly different variation on the Mameru, which featured Chirag at the center of the activities.
“The name garba comes from the Sanskrit term Garba (”womb”) and Deep (”a small earthenware lamp”). Many traditional garbas are performed around a central lit lamp. The circular and spiral figures of Garba have similarities to other spiritual dances. Traditionally it is performed during the nine-day Hindu festival Navarātrī (Gujarātī નવરાત્રી Nava = 9, rātrī = nights). Either the lamp (the Garba Deep) or else an image of the Goddess Amba is placed in the middle of concentric rings as an object of veneration.
People dance around the center as if they are horse racing, bending sideways at every step, their arms making sweeping gestures, each movement ending in a clap.
The Dandiya Raas dance
Modern garba is also heavily influenced by raas (Gujarātī: ડાંડીયા Ḍānḍīyā), a dance traditionally performed by men. The merger of these two dances has formed the high-energy dance that is seen today.
Both men and women usually wear colorful costumes while performing garba and dandiya. The girls and the women wear ghaghra choli, a three-piece dress with choli on the top and ghaghra as bottom, made of cotton with beads, shells, mirrors, sitars, and embroidery work, mati, jhumkas, necklaces, bindi, bajubandh, chudas and kangans, kamarbandh, payal, and mojiris and dupatta tucked in the Gujarati manner. Boys and men wear kafni pyjamas with a kediyu – a short round kurta – above the knees and pagadi on the head with bandhini dupatta, kada, and mojiris.”
Day two of Chirag and Nancy’s wedding festivities began with the Pithi ceremony. Essentially, a paste made out of chickpea flour, turmeric, rose water, and other ingredients is rubbed on the skin of the bride and groom by family members. Traditionally this takes place at the homes of the bride and groom separately, but in our case, Chirag was pasted first. While he was showering, Nancy had her own ceremony!
The paste is thought to be good for skin and to even out skin tone. I suppose we’d need to check in with Chirag and Nancy to confirm this, but the two were absolutely glowing during the ceremony. Of course…that might be due to the yellow paste! 
