Therese Cole-Hubbs walks into our office and all eyes are on her. The tall, blonde-haired lady is dressed in a dark blue salwar suit with matching earrings, necklace and henna designs on her hands. Meet the American lady, who has a passion to plan only Indian weddings.
She started off as a wedding planner 31 years ago and says she has planned around 700 weddings till date. She stopped in Bengaluru, on her way to Goa, to tell us about her passion for Indian weddings. “It is because you have such strong family values and bonds. I think I also became a wedding planner simply because I once said ‘Yes, I do’. Many don’t realise the power of ‘yes’. Planning weddings is my chance to share the story of their love, emotions and journey. Indian people love to tell their stories and that is why I do Indian weddings. I don’t do white weddings, I do mixed weddings. People in the West don’t want Indian weddings unless they are marrying Indians,” starts Therese, who runs Electric Karma International in the US.
She talks about the change in the attitude towards organising a wedding: “Earlier, only parents, uncles or aunts spoke and made decisions. But today, it is the bride and the groom, who are at the forefront -- right from choosing the venue to their vision of the wedding.”
Therese says she insists that most NRIs come back to India for their wedding as “most of them are Americanised and have lost touch with certain India traditions and the meaning behind them. If we don’t make an effort to keep that alive, then their grand children may never know of such things.” She does not believing in living in hotels while working on a wedding, but, “I live in with the family. When you eat, sleep and drink tea with them you get to know them and their likes more personally, which makes it easy for me to execute their vision into a reality. My contact does not end with just the wedding. I try to be part of every special or sad moment in their lives. So they become more like an extended family for me,” beams the wedding planner, who has planned all kinds of weddings from Punjabi, Gujarati, to Tamil, Muslim and Indian Christian weddings to name a few.
That is not all, she also ensures that the bride and the groom are on time and also “lead the baraat in Punjabi weddings by dancing in the front. Over there, you pay by the hour and not by the day, like in India. So every minute is precious,” she adds.
Had she ever seen an Indian wedding before she became a wedding planner? “Yes, and I noticed that they were pretty disorganised. That is where I come in. I coordinate everything -- from the seating arrangements, décor to food and hospitality. For me hospitality is most important -- how you greet your guests and the food you serve -- as guests are the ones who are going to talk about your wedding for years to come.”
Then she says that when she arranges a wedding in the US she has to work with what is available there when it comes to food. “As we don’t have live food counters at venues, I have make sue to get piping hot samosas or pakoras. And people only think of cocktails so I put in that extra effort to arrange for mocktails too.”
She adds that entertainment also has to be be phenomenal. “We have dances, magic, illusion aristes, DJs and so on, to suit the mood. As most weddings have jarring music, we make sure that the music is good and soothing and also pleasant for those who are aged,” beams Therese, who adds that she makes sure to have a child zone, talk zone and a separate space for the performance so that nothing takes away the attention from the wedding, bride and groom.
Therese has now written a book SHAADI : A Journey Into Desi Weddings. This is now available on Amazon in print and digital versions.