I don't really get the point of spending so many thousands of rupees on something that will eventually fade away but mehndi does look pretty while it lasts. Unfortunately there seems to be a system where the mehndi artists charge a significantly larger amount if you're the bride or the bride's immediate family irrespective of how much work they have to put in which I think is quite silly. You could put just about as much on your hands as everyone else and they'll still charge you 100 times the amount simply because you're the bride's mother or sister.
Anyway you have to admit that applying mehndi is a talent and it takes a lot of hand skill, precision and imagination to make those designs.
My grandmother told me that in her time girls used to wear mehndi only for the engagement and they wore red alta on the day of the wedding. I wonder how they managed their white saris with all that red stuff on their hands!
There are a whole bunch of mehndi artists in Bombay. Ours had ditched us the night before and we found a replacement almost immediately. Some are more talented than others but at the end of it all, it's going to fade off your hands anyway so there's no point being overly picky about it.
