It’s that time of the month again….we are on our final day of the June Maharani of the Month contest.  This month’s lucky winner will be crowned as our Facebook avatar and win a $100 gift certificate to Exclusively.In. Voting closes at 5pm PST, so make sure you head over to The Maharani Weddings Fan Page on Facebook and *like* the photo of your favorite Maharani! Just a note, for this contest, we can’t count comments, only likes, and only one vote per person please.

From South Africa to the sunny beaches of Southern California….meet our gorgeous contestants from around the globe!

Seshni Coopsamy: Simply loved this website, was an absolute inspiration for my garden wedding in april 2011, from the hairstyles to mendhi… my family and frends loved every moment, definitly set a new standard for indian weddings here in South Africa

Harpreet Lakha: I love this picture of my sister from her wedding day..She looks absolutely beautiful so I thought of sharing it!

Karishma Gautam: Like everyone else here, I love MW, the pictures are so gorgeous, and every event an inspiration. I got married March 14, 2010 and believe it or not we were able to pull the whole thing together, from start to finish, in 5 weeks! My parents brought my wedding lehenga when they came from India as I never had a chance to go to there to shop! But despite the time constraints, everything turned out perfect (or so I feel). Obviously tons of inspirations were to be had from this website, so a BIG Thank you for that.

Anuradha Ana Mohleji: I absolutely LOVE Maharani Weddings. It is is an absolute must for any South-Asian bride-to-be. It serves as a great source of inspiration. The best part about it is that this website is constantly updated and relevant. Right now I am a bride to be and I hope to look as great as all the gorgeous brides featured on this website

Divya Sai Vaswani: sharing my maharani moment! maharani weddings is such great site…it’s the perfect tool for brides to be.

Monika Morovic: i love maharani weddings! i got inspired a lot by the pictures and links here – this inspiration was important during the preparation for our wedding: i am from slovakia and my husband is indian… our wedding was a lovely fusion of our cultures also thanks to the inspiration found here… thanks!!! this is a picture of me from our wedding weekend: a slovak maharani! Hope you like it!

Neha Daryanani: Love love LOVE this website! You really helped me to plan my January wedding in Arizona! We got some great ideas for decor and color themes for each event and I love that people share their real life experiences. There are great money saving ideas too! I recommend this site to every one of my friends that are planning their weddings and even though mine is over, I still love to view the website every day

Nika Patel: Maharani Weddings is the best site that I have ever been to! It’s up to date on everything, which helped me plan my dream wedding to be perfect! My family and friends were amazed with how everything looked and said it was like a royal gorgeous wedding! I had to tell everyone about Maharani Weddings because that’s where I did most of my research. Even though I’m married now I still love looking at their site and helping anyone else that is planning a wedding! I love it!

Priyanka Patel: I LOVE Maharani Weddings, It has truly been a inspiration to my dream wedding. The best part of the website is the Platinum AMAZING Vendors! THANK YOU for helping me plan my dream wedding!

Rajni Seehra-Thiara: Love this site always have refreshing ideas and inspirations. Always look forward to new updates. The Platinum Vendor list is very helpful. Your doing an amazing job. Maharani to me means having a distinctive royal style. Along with the perfect attitude to carry it.

Tamika S. Jaswani: Maharani weddings served a a great resource for me during my wedding planning….even if it was just one picture of a beautiful wedding. I received personal emails on where I could get a bridal lengha to my specifications. Even for a non-traditional bride, all you need is available on this site.. if not they will help you find it….Love it!

Megha Kaushal Kadiyala: I got married almost 2 years ago but STILL visit Maharani Weddings on a daily basis. I’m slightly obsessed with Indian weddings and MW does an amazing job feeding that obsession! This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding because it shows how happy and content I am, even though around me the crazy wedding festivities are going on! And I also love the fact that the happiness is coming through when I’m with my husband! I truly felt like a Maharani with my Maharaja

Arpana Uppal Bhatia: My family and friends loved this pictures, as did I. It was taken as I was getting ready for the wedding ceremony. Everyone said I looked like an old Indian movie actress. That was great, as our whole wedding weekend, I felt like I was the star of a Bollywood movie — with my Bollywood hero, my dulha raja, awaiting me!

Good luck to all these amazing ladies, and make sure you head over to Facebook to vote for the next Maharani of the Month!

If you are a modern Indian bride who loves Philippe Starck, clean lines, and minimal flowers, you are going to want to run and grab your wedding binder and take notes on this one.  I am sure at this point you are as glued to your seat as I am and going {Lady}Gaga over this modern Indian wedding photographed by Wedding Documentary.  If you loved the Hindu ceremony, prepare for your breath to be taken away by this sharp, swanky, Vogue-ish reception.

Trivia for the day….what is Carrie Bradshaw’s favorite flower?  If you guessed pink carnation, you guess right!  I am sure that Carrie would click her Manolos to see her favorite bloom looking so hip and stylish as wedding centerpieces. Meticulously arranged in an elegant crystal vase, they are the only thing that you need on the table.

Big thanks to the fabulous team at Wedding Documentary for this submission and we will see you all tomorrow to crown our next Maharani of the Month!

I am obsessing over today’s San Francisco Indian wedding.  With a venue as modern and chic as the SF Design Center, it is only fitting that Rachna and Roshan’s Hindu ceremony be equally as chic and modern.  I don’t think I will ever get sick of looking at the signature Hermes fuschia and saffron color palette.  The indoor tenting is stunning and the marigolds in the mandap add that perfect auspicious touch.  With so many gorgeous photos by Wedding Documentary, I could be gazing for hours!

Images by Wedding Documentary

How adorable is that last shot?!  If I was the Maharani, that would definitely be my profile picture for a long time!  More on the way!

I am SUPER pumped for today’s featured Indian wedding.  Not only is it in my Bay Area backyard of San Francisco, but it is at my favorite place IN San Francisco…The Design Center.  It’s like South Coast Plaza for your home.  The best of the best couture interior designers grace their halls and it’s hard not to leave totally, utterly inspired.  But, before we get to all that yummy-ness at their reception, this Hindu ceremony is loaded with scrumptious ideas.  With printed bridesmaid’s dresses all the rage in the American wedding circuit, I love how this stylish bride chooses a multicolored sari for her leading ladies.  Hold on to your tiaras Maharanis, this one is BANANAS.

Images by Wedding Documentary

More Indian wedding fabulousn-ess coming right up!

There are so many, many, MANY things I love about this Chicago Indian wedding, that picking my favorite is next to impossible.  I am still swooning over the bride’s white lengha, and I can’t seem to get the gown aspect of it out of my mind.  Then it’s their wedding cake. Five tiers of sophisticated confection, it is almost too pretty to eat.  But, if I really had to choose my favorite part of this wedding, it would be the bride’s glowing smile captured beautiful by Monica Z. Photography.

From our Maharani, Jenny :

On May 22, 2010 we got engaged! We had exactly 1 year to plan for the most important day of our lives. As part of our tradition we had several events leading up to the big day. Some events took place as early as 10 months before, as well as the night before and throughout the entire day. The planning went beyond just choosing vendors but planning international travel for the many of our family members and myself. I was able to get all of the wedding clothes for myself, friends and family. The inspiration for the theme of the wedding did not come together until 4 ½ months before the actual wedding. A trip to India was planned but continued to get pushed out month after month. It was the first time for me going back after 17 years and I was putting all my eggs in a basket that I would find everything in the short 2 week window I had. I ventured to Bombay in search of the perfect wedding dress with nothing but a picture in hand and attempting to find the perfect bridesmaid sarees. I was lucky enough to find a tailor on my first day of shopping to create an Indian version of a white wedding dress! I got the exact mermaid style dress with the exact bead work I requested!! After spending the next two weeks in the motherland I managed to put an order in for 10 bridesmaid sarees and purchase the majority of the wedding garments and necessities! As soon as February hit the fun and games ended and the real work began. Visits to the florist, planning and finding venues for our night before traditions, food tastings, centerpieces, and taking care of those not so fun details ate up our time! Some of our details were extremely last minute and thrown together while other components were well planned out! It’s true when people say, the only ones that know if something went wrong is the bride and groom. For everyone else it’s just a part of the show!

There were key people that traveled from all over the world to share this day with us. One of them happened to my dad’s brother who is a priest. I was lucky enough to have him fly from India to conduct the actual marriage ceremony. I’ve always imagined getting married with my uncle performing the wedding rituals. Benny’s favorite aunt from him dad’s side also made the trip all the way from London and they were reunited after 15 years! Family and friends are incredibly important to us and without them there is NO way that we could’ve had the beautiful day that we had. From the visitors we had, to my cousins in India who helped me every step of the way with the translations, bargaining, and keeping me in line with the latest Indian fashions! In addition to all of those who made the travels to be with us,( 90% of my guests were from out of state) our vendors were huge life savers.

Our 2 biggest priorities were the banquet hall/food and photography. We were lucky enough to find individuals who really understood us and also meshed with us well. As the wedding day was a bit of a blur we are so thankful to have had amazing photographers capture those moments that flew by! Without the pictures we would’ve not been able to truly appreciate all of the decorations and the dessert table!!! Of course there were also the beautiful engagement session photos and the time our photographers spent the night before our wedding capturing more and more of our traditions! They were there at every moment making sure they didn’t miss anything and they were not shy with getting in the middle of the action to get what we needed!

Benny and I are extremely different however we complimented and balanced each other out during the wedding planning. We helped each out stay on track and really prioritize what was needed and what we could live without. With the combination of our faith, vendors, family, friends and each other we were able to have the perfect wedding!

With wedding memories this beautiful, do you blame me for sharing a ton of them?

Brava Monica Z. Photography! Thank you for sharing Jenny & Benny’s Indian wedding extravaganza with us!