]http://www.frugalbride.com
Go to the "babbling brides bullitin bored for ideas. Theres a section for your type of wedding on there that would have some ideas.

For decorations if you know what you want theres companys that set it all up for you, you need to look online, wedding rentals in vancouver, you may not need a planner although they do help tons!

Not many vendors from Vancouver but some great brides with lots of advice and great ideas. The page has been a life saver!
Theres also ]http://www.indianwedding.ca/aboutus.html

I can help you with all of those things.. just don't have the time to post right now, but drop me a pm and I'll get on it tomorrow. In the meantime check out asianweddings.ca.. it's somewhat helpful.

And 8 months is plenty of time (unless you're super picky about the Gurdwara & the date). I planned mine myself in under 6 months.

It's too bad, you just missed the Cultural Wedding Show that was held in September....

Do you have your date set?
Do you have a venue?
Set your budget...

Those should be your top 3 priorities to get the ball rolling...

A few ads in the Cultural wedding planner i picked up there:

TakWear.com http://takwear.com/home.htm
UMA Esthetics & Bridal Make Up http://www.umaesthetics.ca/
Bold Looks http://www.boldlooks.com/
Mobile Beauty Spa http://www.topmakeupartist.com/

i'm sure unbound will be able to help you out more than i could

check out www.weddingbells.ca (the online forum is GREAT for ideas and help!)

Any other questions, feel free to PM me and I can help out as much as i can
(I'm taking the wedding planning class at BCIT right now, and i live, eat, sleep, and dream weddings 24/7 )

unbound recently had a indian wedding. She might be another good person to ask

My makeup artist was Rupi Samra, she was wonderful... on time, did a great job and was a pleasure to work with. She’s a full time teacher so I don’t think she’s booking too many weddings anymore but it might be worth a shot.. her email is: rupisamra@hotmail.com. Indian makeup artists are a big expense so you might want to consider getting a non Indian M.A. but keep in mind that they may not know how to pin your chunni.

As far as mehndi goes, check out the wedding show, you’ll get some ideas there.. everyone is pretty much on the same page so just go with someone who you’ve got a good rapport with. I went with Raqiya, who comes highly recommended.. she did a great job but she’s got a bit of a mouth on her and I ended up paying her more than I should have.

The UK has wonderful Indian bridal magazines… I think you can probably order them online.. here’s one: http://www.asianamag.com/ you won’t find much of anything (if anything at all) here. As for websites… http://www.reddbridal.com/, http://www.hinab.com/details.htm, http://www.sheetalindia.com/home.aspx. The last one, sheetalindia.com is where I got the idea for my wedding lengha. Your best bet is to find something you like, print it off and send it with your measurements to India (or preferably with someone to India). You will pay at least a ¼ of the price you would pay here or online.

I had my cake made at Mozart Bakery in Langley, http://www.mozartbakery.com/ , a little bit on the expensive side but she did a great job. There are very cheap options that CowGirlSissy would be able to advise you of (if she hasn’t already). Nobody ate my cake because the hall didn’t cut it until about midnight, so it was a bit of a waste but it looked beautiful. :shrug:

I had Cindy do my decorations, she decorated our house and the hall. I was really happy with how it looked and her prices were average. Let me know if you’d like her contact info.

You didn’t ask, but if you’re still looking for someone to do your flowers & your photography I would recommend who I used in a heartbeat.

Oh and.. congrats!

Lol.. for some reason I assumed that you weren't EI.. not that it makes any difference, just funny.

What Gurdwara are you hoping for?

I used Bal Deo for my photos (deosphotoimages.com) he was wonderful .

Yes i'm Punjabi... hehe!
And i want to get married at the Akali Singh Gurdwara... off the number 1hwy there... I'm a North Van girl, so we've always gone to that specific gurdwara, and had all our family functions there. Most of my cousins have gotten married there as well, so I hope we can get a good date
And thanks for the picture guy!

Unbound-- those cakes are SO beautiful!

unbound your links aren't working. There is an extra http:// in most of them

^ ^ oops, sorry.. should be fixed now.