Bridal Henna story, as requested (hepl for next time?!)

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ The Henna Page Forum ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Lauren on July 5, 2001 at 16:28:14:

I mixed up some Jamila with lemon juice, sugar, and the special
bridal tea (roses, hibiscus, cloves, black tea, and coffee) and let
it sit overnight. In the morning, it was lovely smooth, and when I
added a bit of eucalyptus oil, it went all silky. Just lovely.
I got to the house exactly on time and knocked on the door and got no
answer. I was still standing there when a lovely girl who looks
about 15 comes running up apologizing for being late. Apperently
she's the bride, but she looks distinctly non-Indian. I thought she
was awfully young but her cousin was also there, and she also looks
about 15 and has a 7-year-old daughter, so i gues sthey just don't
age. Anyway, she looked at some pictures while I filled my Jacquard
bottles and I go to work, starting on her hands. I realized after
about ten minutes that I wasn't going to be able to finish the job
with thebottles as they already were starting to hurt my hand. I was
going to call my husband to bring me a carrot bag, but as it turned
out they had a boxed kit there with a cone in it and I used that
instead. It was very stretchy plastic, which made it very comfy to
work with.
I asked about the cumin dye that they rub into her skin for the next
two nights. She said, "It's because of my fiance, we are Christian
people but he is Hindu and it's part of the crap I have to go through
to marry him." I knew this was going to be fun. As it turns out,
she and her family are from British Guiana, which is in South America
but speaks English.
She said she didn't want full traditional bridal mehndi, just simple
stuff, so I did some pretty designs on the back of each hand, and on
one palm I put an OM and the other a HRIM, which I copied out of
CCJ's book, thanks very much. I lemon sugared her and wrapped with
cotton then plastic wrap, tight. While I was doing this, several
female relatives wandered in and out and took a look. The woman with
the daughter had married a Hindu man (which is how my client met her
fiance) and said "You should see some of the designs the Indian
mehendi women do, it's gorgeous, covering all the skin and so
delicate." Well, I was doing what the client wanted. She even said
how she was glad she hadn't gone to NYC as she had planned because
she knew she would have gotten talked into doing "the works".
Anyway, I finished her hands and started her feet, just the tops.
She has some sort of twitch in her legs, so to keep them still, she
just put them on the floor and I lay down on the floor to do them,
which was very comfortable but I'm glad nobody came in! One I did a
lotus that I hid the groom's initials in and lots of viney flowers.
I ended up with some blank space and I put in a bee, which got her
all excited because his favorite song is about a bee. It's good when
that happens, made me feeel like I was doing good stuff. I think her
feet turned out much better than the hands, unfortunately. I LS and
wrapped the feet, too.
When I was done, it was 4 hours later! Let me tell you, my new
mantra is EAT BEFORE EVENT> I was starving but I got her done. We
were the only ones in the house at that poing, so she had to walk to
get her pocketbook (ack!) an dthen dig in it for the monry (double
ack!). I tried to help but felt weird digging around in someone's
purse. She had $200 in hundred dollar bills, but I was only charging
$180. I didn't have change and neither did she, but she did have a
wad of bills meant for something else, which was $61, and I said I'd
just take that instead. Since I was originally going to charge
$40/hr, it didn't hurt too much and I felt it would go toward good
will.
Then I went home and ate.
I am so nervous that she smeared the henna walking and digging in her
purse. There's going to be about 200 potential new customers at this
wedding, and since I'm the only artist in the area, this could make
or break me. Will they all think I was doing big clumsy designs
because I couldn't do the delicate work? I reded a design on the
back of my hand, wrapped and slept with it (which is what I usually
do) and it's a big (dark! dark is usually good...) messy thing.
Cones put the design on withlines taller than they are wide, what if
they're all squished on her, too? she invited me to the wedding and
I'd love to see her and take pictures and stuff, but now I'm afraid
to show my face. Is it appropriate to call and see how it turned
out? If it's awful, what can I do?
ack
thanks for letting me vent a bit

 

Follow Ups

Post Followup

Name:   
E-Mail:   
Subject:   
Optional link URL:   
Link title:   
Optional image URL:   
   
Served by ruboard 2.1.1; Copyright © 1998 by Andrew Maltsev.