The words at a Gujarati wedding, explained.

Grah Shanti ગ્રહશાંતિ

Also written: graha shanti · grahshanti vidhi · grah shanti meaning

Grah Shanti is the pre-wedding puja performed to pacify the planets and remove obstacles before the marriage.

Held at the family home a day or two before the wedding, usually with a priest and close relatives. The ritual is meant to settle any inauspicious planetary influence in the couple's charts so the marriage begins cleanly.

Practically, Grah Shanti is also the moment the house fills up: it is often the first ceremony where out-of-town relatives arrive, which makes it the real start of the accommodation and catering planning.

Mandap મંડપ

Also written: mandap meaning · mandap muhurat

The mandap is the decorated four-pillared canopy under which the wedding ceremony itself is performed.

The four pillars are usually said to represent the four parents. The couple, the priest and the immediate family sit inside it for the phera and the main rites.

Most of the wedding-day photography, the pahermani, and the longest stretch of the guests' attention happen around the mandap, which is why decorators charge for it separately and why it is worth pinning down early with your vendor.

Vidai વિદાય

Also written: bidaai · vidaai · vidai meaning

Vidai is the farewell at the end of the wedding, when the bride formally leaves her parents’ home.

The bride throws a handful of rice back over her shoulder as she leaves — a gesture of repaying and wishing prosperity on the house she grew up in — and the family sees her off.

It is the emotional close of the wedding and the point at which the bride's family's hosting obligations end. Anything still unresolved by vidai, from vendor balances to unreturned utensils, becomes an after-the-fact chase.

Sagai સગાઈ

Also written: engagement gujarati · gol dhana · sagai meaning

Sagai is the engagement ceremony, at which the two families formally agree the match.

Often paired with gol dhana — jaggery and coriander seeds shared to mark the agreement. The chandlo vidhi, where the bride's family applies the tilak to the groom and offers cash, usually happens here.

Sagai is where the vyavahar for this wedding effectively begins: what is given and received on that day is recorded and remembered like everything after it.

Vyavahar વ્યવહાર

Also written: vyavhar · vevhar · vyavahar khata · vyavahar book · vyavahar hisab

Vyavahar is the running record of gifts given and received between families, kept across generations rather than reset at each wedding.

Vyavahar is the single most misunderstood idea in a Gujarati wedding, because it is not about one event at all. When your Mama gives ₹51,000 at your wedding, that is not a present — it is an entry in a ledger that both families remember. Years later, when his daughter marries, your family is expected to give back at least as much, adjusted for the years in between.

Families traditionally keep this in a physical notebook, the Vyavahar Khata, handed down and added to at every occasion. Losing it is a genuine disaster: without it there is no way to know what is owed to whom, and getting it wrong causes lasting offence. This is why the ledger belongs to the family rather than to a wedding.

Read the full guide: What is a Vyavahar Khata? →

Pahermani પહેરામણી

Also written: pehramani · paheramani · pahermani meaning · pahermani list

Pahermani is the ceremonial giving of clothing and cash envelopes to relatives, usually at the mandap during the wedding.

A queue of relatives comes forward and each is given a saree, a dhoti, or an envelope, according to their relationship to the family. It is public, it is fast, and everyone is watching.

Two failures are common and both are remembered for years: missing someone who should have been given, and giving twice to the same person. The list must be prepared before the day, and it needs to be recorded as it happens — not reconstructed afterwards from memory.

Read the full guide: How to track pahermani →

Mameru મામેરું

Also written: mamera · mosalu · mameru list · mameru gift list · mameru meaning

Mameru is the ceremony where the maternal uncle (mama) and his family bring gifts — clothing, jewellery, sweets and cash — for the bride or groom.

Also called mosalu in parts of Saurashtra. The mama's side arrives, usually shortly before the wedding, with a large and deliberate set of gifts: saris for the mother and the bride, jewellery, sweets, and cash.

It is one of the most emotional moments of the whole wedding and one of the most expensive. Because the giving is itemised and public, it deserves a written list rather than improvisation — and because it is a vyavahar entry, what is given is remembered and reciprocated later.

Read the full guide: The mameru gift list →

Chandlo ચાંદલો

Also written: chandla · chandlo meaning · chandlo vidhi

Chandlo is the cash gift given by relatives and guests at a wedding, and also the tilak ceremony at which it is offered.

In its narrow sense the chandlo is the vermilion mark applied to the groom's forehead at the engagement. In everyday use, "chandlo" is what people mean by the cash a guest hands over in an envelope.

Chandlo amounts are almost always odd numbers ending in one — ₹101, ₹501, ₹2,101 — because the extra rupee is considered auspicious and makes the sum indivisible. Every chandlo received is a vyavahar entry, which is why families record the giver's name alongside the amount.

Shikh શીખ

Also written: sikh vyavahar · shikh meaning

Shikh is the customary gift given to a departing guest or relative, often paired with pahermani.

Where pahermani is the ceremonial giving at the mandap, shikh is closer to the courtesy extended to relatives as they leave — cash, cloth, or sweets, according to relationship. In the original planning booklets the two are tracked on the same page, because to the family they are one obligation: nobody who came should leave empty-handed.

Janaan જાન

Also written: jaan · baraat · varghodo · janaiya

The janaan (or baraat) is the groom’s wedding procession — his family and guests travelling together to the venue.

In Gujarati weddings the procession is often called the varghodo, and the people in it are the janaiya. The bride's family receives them formally on arrival, a moment called the sāmaiyu.

For planning purposes the janaan is a logistics problem more than a ritual one: transport, timing, and knowing exactly how many people are travelling — because the bride's side is catering for all of them.

Rasoda રસોડું

Also written: rasodu · rasoda menu · gujarati wedding menu list

The rasoda is the wedding kitchen — the cooking operation that feeds every guest across every meal of a multi-day wedding.

A Gujarati wedding is not one meal. It is nasto (breakfast/snacks), lunch and dinner, repeated across three or four days, for a guest count that changes each day. The rasoda is run either by a hired caterer (maharaj) or, in more traditional families, by relatives.

Planning it means deciding a menu per meal per day, converting that into a grocery list with real quantities, and keeping the spend visible — food is usually the single largest line in the budget.

Maharaj

Also written: rasoiya · wedding caterer gujarati

The maharaj is the cook or caterer who runs the wedding kitchen, typically quoting per plate or per day.

A maharaj is engaged for the whole wedding rather than a single meal, and the agreement usually covers labour while the family supplies (or reimburses) the groceries. The terms vary enough between families that they are worth writing down: what is included, what the per-plate rate covers, and what the advance was.

Kankotri કંકોત્રી

Also written: kankotari · kankotri list · kankotri format · kankotri meaning

The kankotri is the Gujarati wedding invitation card, and by extension the invitation list built around it.

The card itself is only half of it. "Making the kankotri list" is the months-long job of deciding who is invited, at what level — some households get a card delivered by hand, some get one by post, some are told in person — and who in the family is responsible for delivering each one.

The list drives everything downstream: your headcount, your catering numbers, your seating and a large part of your budget. Most families rebuild it three or four times across different WhatsApp messages, which is exactly where names get lost.

Read the full guide: Making your kankotri list →

Kharch ખર્ચ

Also written: kharch sarveyu · wedding kharch · gujarati wedding budget

Kharch is expenditure — and the kharch sarveyu is the wedding expense ledger, the running account of everything the wedding costs.

A wedding kharch account covers both sides of the ledger: money going out to vendors, kitchen, clothing and gifts, and money coming in as chandlo and contributions from relatives.

Families almost always underestimate the same three lines: food (because the headcount grows), pahermani and shikh (because the list grows), and the small cash payments made on the day that nobody writes down.

Rivaj રિવાજ

Also written: rivaj mujab · custom gujarati wedding

Rivaj is established custom — the set of obligations a family follows because that is how it has always been done in their community.

Rivaj varies by region and community: what Saurashtra families do at a given ceremony is not always what Ahmedabad families do. Much of the friction in wedding planning comes from two families operating on slightly different rivaj and neither writing theirs down.

In practice, rivaj determines who must be given what — which relatives receive pahermani, what the mama's side is expected to bring, what is owed to the priest and the barber.