Of all the arrivals in a wedding week, one is watched by everyone. The house treats the bridal car as the day’s most important appointment: the flowers done by hand that morning, in your colours, never a sticker or a ribbon on the paint; the cabin cooled before you reach it so nothing wilts, least of all you; a sarathi who has walked the venue gate the day before and knows the minute the band expects you; and a car chosen for the photographs and for the lehenga, which are not always the same thing.
The Mercedes S-Class for a classic entry and a low, wide door; the Range Rover for a gate that should see you coming and a sari that should not have to climb; the Toyota Vellfire for a sliding door, a flat floor and room for a mother and a sister. A Rolls-Royce Phantom or Ghost, a Bentley or a Maybach by arrangement, thirty days ahead. White or black, as you say.
Fresh, in your palette, done by the house the morning of the journey — the bonnet, the door handles, the rear shelf; a garland inside if you wish, never a scent you did not ask for. Decoration for the bridal and the groom’s cars is inside the figure for the day.
Your sarathi holds the run sheet for the car: the parlour, the house, the venue, the gate, the minute. He is in touch with whoever runs the day, not with you. If the sangeet ran late and the morning moves, the car moves with it.
Inside every written figure: the car, your sarathi, fuel, every toll, parking at both ends and GST. Nothing is added on the day, and no meter runs.
The groom’s car is matched — the same marque in the other colour, or the same car twice — and dressed more quietly. The parents’ cars, the sisters’, the cars for the elders who should not wait at a gate, are written on the same sheet; see the guest cars. One figure for the whole, half of it holding the cars, the balance seventy-two hours before.
For the entry itself the house can hold a second dressed car near the first — so that a flat tyre on the morning is a story the family never hears. Ask for a second car, standing by when the wedding is written.
Put a flower where it marks the paint. Send a car whose papers it has not seen. Let the bridal car sit in the sun. Hand you a driver who has not been to the gate. Ask you, or anyone at the wedding, for anything.
Write to the house about the bridal carThe date, the venue, the colours. The figure follows in writing.