Booking a bridal artist in another city: Chennai, Trichy, Pudukkottai and Madurai

Most South Indian weddings are not held where everyone lives. The bride is working in Chennai, the family home is in Pudukkottai, the muhurtham is in Madurai and the artist is based in Trichy. That is normal, and it is worth planning rather than hoping through.

The travel decides the call time, not the makeup

An artist arriving from another city is not starting at your door. She is starting at a bus stand or a station or a car at an hour that has to work backwards from the muhurtham, with the traffic of that particular morning built in.

Ask what time she needs to arrive, not what time she needs to start. They are different questions and only one of them is yours to plan around.

What to tell her when you enquire

• The city and the venue. "Madurai" and "a hall forty minutes outside Madurai" are different jobs.
• The muhurtham time. Everything else is scheduled from it.
• Where you will be getting ready. A hotel room, a family house and a temple side-room have very different light and very different power sockets.
• How many people. A bride alone and a bride with four relatives are not the same morning.
• Whether there are events on consecutive days, and in which cities.

The trial, when you are not in the same city

This is the part that catches people out. If you live in one city and the wedding is in another, a trial may need its own trip for one of you. Ask early:

• Where can a trial be done, and when?
• What can be settled over photographs and a call instead?
• If a trial is not practical, what is the plan for making the decisions it would have made?

What does not change

The kit, the hands and the approach are the same in Chennai, Trichy, Pudukkottai and Madurai. The register is chosen with you either way. What changes is the timetable — and a timetable is much easier to fix in advance than on the morning.

If your wedding is in one of the four, send the date and the venue and you will be told plainly whether it is open.