MY BIG FAT INDIAN BALI WEDDING!!
UPDATE: Please PM me if you want to know costing or anything budgeting wise!
Hello everyone! I made a post early last year (Bali Destination Wedding Cost) requesting help on my Bali Wedding for this year and I am so happy with all the help I received and so many people reached out to me for help as well!
I received so so so many messages from so many lovely ladies asking for help on their potential Bali wedding that I decided I want to make a post with all the information I have so that anyone who wants to have their wedding in Bali will have everything they need!! I’d also be happy to answer any questions or opinions if you all want to follow up on any vendors/information i’ve shared below!
For some context, we had a 150 guest wedding this past May! Guests travelled majority from the US, some from India, and then minority of people from London and Australia!
VENUES: SOOOOOO MANY OPTIONS!! Nusa Dua Beach Hotel, Merusaka, Hilton Bali, Conrad Bali (we picked them AND HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM!! They are so generous and the kindest people we’ve met!), Westin Bali, Villa Tamarana, Puri Bhagwan, Ayana, Sofitel Nusa Dua, Grand Mirage Resort, Sakala, Melia Bali, Ayodha Resort Bali, The Mulia, St Regis Resort Bali, Anantara Uluwatu.
Many resort/villa options I shared are on Nusa Dua and Uluwatu side however there are may more in Kuta and smaller capacity resorts in Ubud
PLANNERS: Happy Bali Wedding, Eventures, Henna Bali Wedding (we picked them and were absolutely so happy with them!), and Vara Wedding
CATERING: Chaskaa (we used them for our boxed lunches and all the guests LOVEDDD it!), Queens Tandoor (we picked them for 50% of our Sangeet, 100% of our wedding (we did gujarati thaali), and 50% for our reception), and Ganesha Ek Sanskriti
Feel free to reach out if you all want to see the menus we used for each of our events from these vendors along with the Conrad menu for our Sangeet and Reception!
DECORATOR: Cloris Decorator, Citta Wedding (we picked them), Frans Decor, Steve Decoration. There’s many more decor vendors that are may provide a better service than Citta Wedding. We loved them but there were some mistakes they were making (obviously only I noticed) but they also gave us alot of additional things that we didn’t ask for (in a good way!) which was really sweet. Overall I would recommend them if you’re looking for what you truly want on a budget.
HAIR AND MAKEUP ARTIST: Wiwit Mua, Fikri MUA, Prabha MUA (we picked them! I just LOVE Prabha she is nothing but magical with her hands and her hair girl Yumi is so cutey!!). I did my makeup and hair trial with them when I visited Bali in January last year and loved the way I looked! She also made a post for my sangeet, wedding, and reception looks on May 26th if you all want to check out how they did my makeup and hair!
DJ: DJ Milan from Singapore, DJ Rewind NYC from US, DJ Freazz from Malaysia (we picked this DJ and we loved his sets!! we recommend that you make playlists of songs you like for each event and also a no play list so the DJ knows what you want for each event and what you absolutely do not want), DJ Veerz from Indonesia, DJ Harsh from Australia, DJ Danny from Indonesia, DJ Sagar Samtani from Indonesia, DJ Arie from Indonesia
MC: We didn’t hire an MC, we had our friends/family MC the sangeet and haldi then DJ for Reception. The MC we were offered however was Ita Sedana.
SOUND/LIGHTING: Twin Brothers Lighting
HENNA/MEHNDI: Our wedding planning Henna Bali Wedding has a separate team of henna/mehndi artists for the bride and guests!
BARAAT VEHICLE: Marvia Classic Car. They have really cute vintage style cars and we picked the white one from them! We wanted the convertible mercedes from Lusi Damai Classic Car however the car had broken down two days before our wedding and we unfortunately had to go with Marvia, but we were still happy with how it turned out!
DHOL & SAREE/CHUNNI DRAPING: Bali Dhol Wedding! Such a weird combo of services this group provides but we hired the dhol service for the baraat only and then each guest was able to request which event they wanted saree draping for and the their team provided accordingly. They can do regular saree/chunni draping as well as Gujarati and South Indian styles of draping for those who are interested! I got my chunnis draped by them for the wedding and am so happy I did so I didn’t feel like scrammed to do it myself!
ALCOHOL: We decided to go with an outside vendor referred to us by our planner. D Booze was the vendor and they were actually very helpful in providing us recommendations for alcohol and amounts of each bottle depending on the event and flow! They were ultimately one of our favorite vendors as they were so hospitable!
PANDITJI: Our original panditji from Jakarta had a family matter which he had to cancel our wedding for so our wedding planner found another pandit within Bali who was willing to accept our wedding for the price of the previous panditji. His name was Guruji Ramesh and his wife Vani Shastry were amazing for our whole entire day 2 from Ganesh Sthapan to Haldi to Wedding Ceremony!
WEDDING CAKE: La Mare Patisserie Bali, the cake was SOOOOOOO good!!! We did a three layer korean style fruit cream cake which was so light and fluffy.
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS (I have mentioned some specific vendors but for items with no vendors, usually the wedding planner can help get those items!):
- Aang Talent Management:
- Fire Dance during Sangeet (our guests HIGHLY enjoyed this)
- CO2 Gun for the Groom at Baraat (most people like to get two for the reception)
- Fireworks + Banjar Fee (neighborhood approval basically) + lots of Pyro Machines for wedding ceremony (our guests are STILL raving about these!!)
- Katuta Photobooth: Set up about 2 hours unlimited photo package during the reception/cocktail hour. Our guests loved the way the photos came out as we had picked the classic photobooth style printing!
- Hand Held Color Bombs: We got 10 pieces and my husbands groomsmen had fun with them at the baraat!
- Hand Held LED Sticks: We got 50 pieces (this was not like how we expected and were disappointed in these)
- Foot Massagers: 3 foot massagers for 3 hours for the Haldi (guests LOVEDDD this!!)
- Audio Guestbook: Phone a Friend, this was such an incredible find in Bali! We got a cute little retro speaker from them after as a keepsake and we love having it as a decoration piece!
- Rain Stoppers!!!: Make sure you get rain stoppers for any event you want to protect from the rain! It is a balinese hindu puja that actually is believed to help shift the weather to make it not rain during a time it’s supposed to! We had perfect weather for the days we had our outdoor events and I truly believe it was because of these!
- Coconut Water Bar: We got 150 coconuts for the wedding ceremony and includes the custom logo on the coconut! Guests took soooo many pics with these!
Wedding Favors: We got small brass Ram Sita statues which were shipped from India! There are tons of small wood pieces you can get as favors from Ubud too, we were highly considering it cause its a specialty in Bali!
- Welcome Bag and Items: These are the items we put in our welcome bags!
- tote bag (one per room)
- batik hand fan (one per person)
- wagh bakri chai packet no sugar (40 boxes with 10 packets each box)
- bali snacks
- Buavita Lychee Juice (one per bag)
- Hydrococo (one per bag)
- Kacang Garuda Atom Coated Flavor Original & Spicy (one per bag)
- Regal Marie Biscuit 120 grm (one per bag)
- Chitato Potato Chip Original 65 gram (one per bag)
- Taro Chip Himalayan Salt Flavor 50 grm (one per bag)
- amenities bag (one per bag)
- panadol (one packet per bag)
- bandaid (one set per bag)
- hand sanitizer (one per bag)
- mosquito repellent (one per bag)
- Welcome Newspapers, Hotel Key Card Holders, Welcome Bag Tags, and Welcome Programs: I designed all of these on canva and then I had my planner set up the printing of these items! Our guests took so many pics with the wedding newspaper and all the signs! The wedding program we had made in the shape of a fan so guests loved having that at the ceremony! Feel free to reach out if you all want the design ideas!
- Airport Transportation: We used a company recommended by our wedding planner to provide our guests with direct airport pickup to resort dropoff on the day everyone was arriving for the wedding festivities! It was such a smooth process we were so happy with it as guests appreciated it too!
I’ll also be making tiktoks/instagram posts about Indian Bali wedding related content so if anyone is interested, please feel free to see @emjayartistry ! Feel free to reach out anytime for any questions or advice! If you all also want to see our wedding highlights, check out our same day edit post on @hennabaliwedding and their story highlight for S&M!!