Issue · Journal
Before the Palace
How a destination wedding in Mysore became a love letter to Bangalore's markets, makers and everyday rituals.
Sasha · Bangalore & Mysore, Karnataka, India · Feb 2025
Editor’s Note
efore the Palace
Some weddings are remembered for the ceremony.
Others for everything that happened before it.
Six friends from England arrived in Bangalore on their way to a wedding at Mysore Palace. Their itinerary was simple: arrive, rest, drive south, celebrate.
India had other plans.
The following morning, Oasis Executive Suites introduced them to Sasha, a style anthologist who believes a city's true landmarks are found in its markets, not its monuments.
Morning began in Malleswaram.
The scent of jasmine arrived before the flowers came into view. Women threaded garlands for weddings they would never attend. A hidden silk merchant unfolded sarees one by one, each carrying the memory of a family, a festival or a place. Nothing was hurried. Nothing was performed for visitors.
Shopping quietly became conversation.
Every recommendation carried a story. Brass coffee tumblers. Hand-painted wedding dolls. A carved keepsake box. Objects chosen not for their price, but for the lives they would continue to hold long after the journey ended.
At MTR, filter coffee arrived in steel tumblers, dosas disappeared almost as quickly as they were served, and the city slowed to its natural rhythm. For one morning, the visitors stopped behaving like tourists. They simply became part of Bangalore.
Only then did they continue to Mysore.
The palace was magnificent. Chandeliers shimmered. Silk caught the light. Families celebrated beneath painted ceilings.
Yet, on the journey home, something unexpected happened.
Nobody spoke first about the palace.
They remembered the jasmine.
The silk merchant.
The morning coffee.
The wooden dolls.
The conversations.
The stopover had quietly become the heart of the wedding.
Some places are visited.
Others become part of your story.
Before the palace, there was Bangalore.
And that was the memory they carried home.
Curator’s Note
The first entry in Sasha's Field Notes, documenting the markets, makers and everyday rituals that reveal Bangalore beyond its landmarks.
— Sasha
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