[NeroASERCH]

Dear IM,

The brahmin marriages these days are just 2 and a half day affairs. In villages it used to be a celebration with many days of preparations. In villages we used to arrange the shamiana man for putting up a grand pandal in front of the house. Then the vandikkaran would be asked to bring fresh river-sand to be spread in the pandal. Then making applam for the marriage used to be a very elaborate kutchery by itself. The dough used to be distributed to many houses and in each house a few women would be making the appalams. A lot of singing and merriment used to accompany such appalak kutcheries. The relatives will start arriving at least a week ahead and with children running around making a lot of noise it used to be a memorable event for every one. But coming to your requirement in the present times:

When I arranged a marriage here, I gave everything to my caterer who took care of catering, decoration, thampoola bag, mat, manohar thengai, paruppu thengai,flowers, gas cylinders, Vadhyar, Vadhyakkaran, pakshanangal including seer murukku, thirattuppaal, nalangu thengai(in brass)-in short everything for a marriage. You can try it with your caterer. If the marriage is going to be in Chennai I would recommend Annakutty Padmanabhan who is a dependable caterer who does a nice job. He also takes up catering in sabhas in Chennai during the December music season. If you want I can give you his contact Number.