Mehndi celebrations is the song competition

Mehndi (Urdu: مہندی) (rasm-e-henna), or the Rasm-e-henna ceremony, typically takes place one or two days prior to the main wedding day. The event is traditionally held separately for the bride and the groom, and henna is symbolically placed on the couple's hands. The groom's friends and family bring along sweets and henna for the bride, and the bride's family does the same for the groom. On the bride's ceremony the groom normally does not participate and similarly, on the groom's event the bride stays at home. Female guests are sometimes offered mehndi at the host's discretion.

Traditionally since there were separate functions for both the bride and the groom, the groom's function was called 'Tael' (oil) where female guests put some oil into the groom's hair. With the ceremony now held simultaneously for both the groom and the bride, the use of the term 'tael' has diminished greatly. In some cases, the entire ceremony is instead referred to as "Tael Mehndi" (Oil and Henna) ceremony.

The bride normally wears a green dress or yellows/oranges for the Henna celebration and uses only light, or mostly, no make-up. The groom will typically wear a casual Shalwar Qameez. The bride and/or the groom are brought forward in the ceremony under a decorative dupatta by their close relatives. In the bridal ceremony, a certain number of married women (seven in most cases) who are closely related to the bride apply henna to her hands, and feed her some sweets. This ritual is supposed to bring good luck and logevity to the bride's married life. Similarly, on the groom's side, oil is applied to his head and sweets are fed to the groom.

One of the most fun part of the Rasme Henna or Mehndi celebrations is the song competition that generally happens between the bride and groom's side. Young women and men will sing teasing songs about the other side (where the bride's side pokes good natured fun at the groom's side and vice versa) and try to compete in this ritual sing song. Even traditionally, elaborate musical and acting performances were part of the Mehndi celebrations. Elaborate dance sequences and competitions between the bride and groom's families are also quite common these days.

Traditionally, the Mehendi was considered a women's event and men did not participate in it mostly. The sing song etc was left almost entirely to women. However, this has changed substantially in recent times with males featuring prominently in the Mehndi celebrations as well. A recent trend that has been gaining popularity is to announce a colour 'theme' for the mehendi whereby guests are supposed to dress up in a particular colour. Favourite mehendi colours are bright reds, oranges and yellow