Tradition Meets Hi-Def Technology and a Live Show at Jain Wedding

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: You have to be Houdini to pull off the feats of transforming the same banquet hall three times in a 24 hours for three separate events. That was exactly the plan that the Jain wedding planning crew had in mind.

It took over 100 people each time to rush through the setup and breakdown for each event, each completely different from the other. With little room for error and moving in a race against time, the teams from decorator Nalini Kannan of Décor One, wedding planner Therese Cole-Hubbs of Electric Karma International which specializes in Indian weddings nationwide, the audio visual vendors, DJ Rocky and staff of the Hilton Americas – all orchestrated by the tech savvy Brij Kathuria – ran through their paces to set up the exquisite spectacles that brought to life the wedding of Dr. Ajay Jain and Audra Brunner this past weekend, November 15 and 16 at the venerable hotel downtown.

“It really was an effort that couldn’t have been down without Brij’s superb skills at visualizations”, said a much elated Swatantra Jain, the groom’s father, two days after the wedding. “The credit goes to him, I just went along with his ideas”. For his part, Kathuria downplays his work, though the results speak for themselves. A former technology whiz, he has morphed his skills into the one passion – elaborate theatrical productions – that has been his first calling. “Swatantra didn’t pinch on any details”, he said, “and the wedding couple wanted to merge tradition with pizzazz. My goal was to create a Wow! Factor as people came into the room”. Kannan worked very closely with Bimala Jain, Ajay’s mom, to develop exactly the moods that she had envisioned. Bimala worked tirelessly for months to recreate a Punjabi style function.

What the guests who came saw and experienced were three events starting from the Sangeet for 350 people on Friday evening. The fourth floor hall was cleared at 2:30 in the afternoon and within 4 hours was transformed into an elegant setting in the tone of the rich cultural heritage of Ajay’s parents Swatantra and Bimala Jain. The ceremony started with a poem and a namokar mantra dance, and the rituals so common in the Punjab with menhdi (henna) painting the hands and feet of the women, singing of tappe – Punjabi folksongs – and other music, and lovingly teasing the newlyweds to be. The colors and textures were vibrant and rich and the food was sumptuously catered by Madras Pavilion of Sugar Land.

From 11;15 Friday night till 10 am on Saturday morning, the hall had to take on the shades of an opulent wedding party, complete with an exquisite mandap and seating for the 275 guests, while also setting up the rigging for the huge projectors and screens that would be required a few hours later for the reception. Audra’s family – her mom Teresa Brunner, sister Ann and the rest of her relatives were dressed in fine sarees, lenghas, sherwanis and turbans as they welcomed the baraat that arrived at the front door of the hotel to the pounding of the dhol. Ajay arrived on a huge white stallion as the baraatis danced outside the front of the hotel on the Avenue of the Americas. Inside the wedding was conducted according to the rituals of the family’s Jain faith. The hotel prepared and served the lunch in the afternoon.

The outfitters had a scant six hours to tear it all down and set up for the grande finale reception that took place Saturday evening. With the eye of an artist, Kathuria coordinated the team effort to convert the ball room into the inside of a futuristic pavilion, lined with blue lit floor-to-ceiling drapes along the three walls and an eighty-foot long back fiber optic drape that created the illusion of a black sky with twinkling stars. Along this wall, eight small video screens, a large round screen and four giant screens – two horizontal and two vertical – shone with pictures and video from overhead high definition, 20,000 lumen, fiber optic projectors that hung from the riggings. Two shot twirling patterns on the shimmering silver-blue curtains.

The throng of over 700 guests, unaware of the dazzling setup inside, congregated in the north lobby overlooking Discovery Green over vegetarian appetizers catered by Bombay Brasserie (which also catered the evening’s vegetarian dinner) and the libations overflowed at the two bars and included the thandni and jal jeera off to the side.

Guests were guided to the west doors where they entered the darkened pavilion through a canopy of four tall tree-trunks set off –stylized branches, all painted white and bathed in white light. The tables were set off with lit candle centerpieces, with the main tables for the family swarmed with lit candles in blue-hued glass and shimmering tablecloths. All the screens projected images, but the two most intriguing ones were the giant size video portraits of Ajay and Audra – one on each side of the dance stage – in which each beckoned and motioned to the guests, as if speaking to them.

Bars decked in the same silver and blue motifs with underlit counters were set off to each side and a desert station hugged one corner, laid out after dinner with delicacies flown in from India, pans in foil and a tava to heat the mithe pudde topped off with rabri and nuts. Dinner was served later at four buffet islands in the lobby and segregated by each quadrant of the pavilion.

As the guests got comfortably seated, the groom’s brother Manish drew their attention to the large screens to see video clips of the events that had preceded the reception. Through videos artistically shot and edited Raghu and Milli Thakkar of Image in Motion, they experienced the color, pageantry and happiness of the sangeet, menhdi and wedding ceremonies, all of which had occurred just a few hours earlier. The parents and relatives from both sides danced in to a boisterous bhangra beat, followed by brief speeches by the Swatantra Jain, Teresa and a few others, notably Ajay’s friend Anish Jain who threw out a few comedic jabs at the newlyweds.

A last minute addition was a segment on Michael Jackson’s music – a favorite of Ajay’s – through video collage and a performance by Houston actor Kendrick Brown who did a fine impersonation, down to the late performers dance moves. As the evening wrapped up, the crowd danced till 2 am to the numbers pelted out by DJ Rocky.