Jesher-Jenn

There is nothing comparable in American clothing to Indian clothing. Nothing. Do you know details: how many people, what kind of place it's being held, are you being invited to all 3 days?

If there will be a lot of Americans there, it will be easier for you clothes-wise. For the reception (which will / should be the biggest, grandest event), you could wear a cocktail dress. The fancier the better. My friend and I joked that we should have worn our American wedding gowns to my BIL's wedding ... it's formal enough, and my SIL was such a PITA about the whole thing we thought it would be fun to piss her off. For the ceremony (which I would skip, BTW ... it's really long ... like 3 hours) - it really depends where / what time of day. Let me know the details and I will try to help. If you are at all interested in wearing Indian clothes, she would probably be willing to loan you some. Indian clothes are tailored with the intent of being shared. There are many seams that can be ripped our or re-sewn to accomodate someone's size. I also know some pretty cheap places to get Indian clothes online ... but understandably the borrow would be a better option for you.

The wedding is about a year away, so thankfully I have time! She freaked me out when she told me to start planning what I was going to wear.....

the thing is, she's not kidding. depending on how well off her family is, they probably have a 4 to 6 week shopping trip to India planned.

At a pretty informal, day time, outdoor wedding a couple years ago, my SIL (then just BIL's fiancee) told my friend that she "wouldn't be able to get away with wearing something like THAT to her wedding", and had better work on it. The friend was wearing an Ann Taylor sundress - not cheap, not inappropriate at all. That's when we decided we should wear our white wedding dresses.