Vinnie kept in touch with her friends via emails and Facebook, and she made even more Indian friends in med school, but my friends gradually became school friends and neighborhood friends. It didn’t help that I dropped Indian dance too. Without Mom or Vinnie to ferry me there after school, and no one close enough to carpool with, it was too hard to stay in the class.
Dad still feels bad about that, I think, since that was another one of the things Mom and I shared.
“Never mind, beta,” Shoma Moorty said. “At least she found an Indian boy. That’s more than so many of our girls are doing now.”
“I guess,” I said. Though what was wrong with a non-Indian boy, I couldn’t fathom.
“So where are you thinking of booking?” she asked, handing me a cup of steaming masala chai that she had conjured out of her kitchenette. “Does she want to be closer to Newton or Westbury? There’s the Newton Grand, or the Crowne Plaza, and the Westborough Villa has really reasonable rates.”
But Vinnie wanted an outdoor wedding. The picture she’d sent me that morning of her and Manish on a hiking trail at sunrise flashed before my eyes. Vinnie was SO not a cookie-cutter, five-star-hotel-ballroom-wedding kind of girl.
“I don’t think a hotel will work for her,” I said. “Someplace natural and green, and outdoors. All this”—I gestured, somewhat apologetically, at the walls of glitzy Bollywood sets—“this really isn’t her style.”
If Shoma Moorty wasn’t willing to offer anything other than the mandaps on display, I would try making one. A basic bamboo structure and a ton of fresh flowers ought to do it. Rachel’s aunt had had a homemade canopy for her wedding—I think the Jewish name for it was huppah. We could probably even rent one from a temple, come to think of it.
But to my surprise, Shoma Moorty didn’t look at all offended. “I give them what they want,” she said. “Most people want what they see in the movies. All gold-shold, and tamasha.” She shook her head. “What to do? It isn’t my job to judge.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah. And don’t rule out hotels, beta,” she said. “Most outdoor locations don’t have waitstaff, or linens, china, and silverware—you have to truck everything in. Some insist on their preferred caterers, so you can’t have Indian food. But hotels usually allow Indian caterers, and some have gardens available for the ceremony. That can work out really well.”
“Do you have a list of hotels I can research?” I asked. “Dad and I can shortlist them for Vinnie, and she can pick the final one.”
“Sure, I’ll email you a list. What’s this?” She pointed at my sketchbook. She had a good eye, that woman.
“I have some ideas about mandaps, Aunty. Can I call you Shoma Aunty?”
“Of course,” she said. “I’m older than you, aren’t I?”
I opened my little folder and pulled out a sketch or two. “These are some of my ideas. This one is a basic bamboo structure draped with sheer tasseled silk drapes. And another idea is to have four real trees be the basic structure of the mandap and have flower garlands to connect them together.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I could do the first one really easily. I have a simple mandap that we could cover with silk. I have the sheer drapes in old gold and I’d add a cranberry-red fabric for a pop of color. Can I keep this picture?”
“Sure!” I said. I was thrilled that she was open to trying it.
“How much would it”—I gulped, dreading the price tag—“how much would it cost?”
She tilted her head and considered. “For the mandap, and the wedding garlands—I have them flown in fresh from India—and some table centerpieces, and a guest book…” She paused. “Five thousand, beta, for you.”
I was frozen to the spot because it was a lot less than I expected. She must have given us a huge discount. “Okay, I’ll let Dad and Vinnie know.”
It was hard to start narrowing down venues when I didn’t have a final guest list—but I had to make a start somewhere. From the list of hotels Shoma Moorty sent, I marked off three venues that fit Vinnie and Manish’s requirements:
1. Reasonable cost.
2. Close to Westbury and/or Newton.
3. Catering by an outside vendor (Indian) allowed.
4. Outdoor garden or patio for the wedding ceremony.
This last one was the hardest. Most hotels didn’t have a garden large enough for a mandap and all the guests. The ones that did tended to be in Cape Cod or Western Massachusetts—too far to work for us—but after a dozen phone calls and massive amounts of Googling I found three that looked promising. I set up appointments for us—Dad was supposed to come check them out with me, but of course he canceled.
So there I was at the Newton Grand grown-up and organized (I hoped) in a sleek blowout, dress pants, and pumps.
I clutched my folder nervously and approached the front desk. I had taken ten pictures of the parking lot and the lobby. Evidently Ragini Aunty, Manish’s mom, liked the Newton Grand, and it was halfway between Westbury and Newton, so at least it worked location-wise. But how much would it cost?
“I have an appointment with the event manager,” I told the receptionist.
“Mini Kapoor?” she asked, and I nodded. “She’ll be right down.”
When the event manager showed up I was relieved to see that she was quite young. Right around Vinnie’s age.
“Hi! Is it Mini?” She took me under her wing. “Let’s start at the ballroom, shall we?” And soon we were examining the ballroom, which could accommodate two hundred to five hundred guests, and yes, the linens, silverware, and waitstaff were included in the
