by Divya Kumar
News Editor

On Sunday, Nov. 22, select high school students participated in a bridal modeling show in order to help prospective brides gain more ideas about what to do and wear on their big day.

The show took place at the Marriot Hotel off of Freeport Parkway, located near the DFW Airport. Though not directly organized through the high school, many high school students, some from Coppell, attended the show to participate as models and volunteers.

“I was surprised when I was asked, because I had never done anything like this before,” CHS senior Benita Thomas said. “I’ve danced thousands of times, so that was more natural, but modeling is something totally different.”

Similarly to Thomas, most of the models in the show were high school students who had little experience in the field before. Only two female models and two male models were amongst those that actually worked with an agency.

Luckily enough, the first-time models had a sufficient number of mentors to guide them. Alpa Patel, owner of the company “An Affair to Remember” and organizer of the fashion show, did a similar show last year. Normally the one setting the scene at weddings, Patel gathered up a group of vendors to advertise at the show along with certain helpers to run the fashion show and the registration booth.

Among this group was Coppell High School junior Henna Khan. As a helper during the show last year, Khan once again aided the venue by choreographing the entire fashion show as well as conversing with several designers such as Silk Threads, Anila, Malik and Studio D to see which outfits would work best.

“Since I did this last year, it wasn’t as stressful this time around, but the whole time I was hoping everything would pull together,” Khan said.

Though the show officially started at 12 PM, models and dancers arrived at the Marriot four hours earlier in order to begin prepping and organizing. It was in the small backstage room and area outside of the reception hall where frantic last minute preparations were made, ranging from outfit changes to figuring out what steps to perform while walking down the runway.

“As far as everything goes, the whole backstage process went pretty smoothly,” Khan said. “There were a lot of last minute changes and practices, but that’s only what can be expected, and far better than the worst that could happen.”

The first of three fashion shows officially started at one, beginning with a solo choreographed walk performed by Coppell High School junior Ritika Harchekar. During the 3 PM show she was accompanied by New Tech High @ Coppell junior Arman Amlani, and she finished the evening with one last solo walk in a beautifully embellished sari.

“I was wearing a black top with a super intricate pattern on the front made out of velvet with red silk on the inside” Amlani said. “All-in-all it probably weighed more than me. But it was so comfortable and so unlike anything I had ever seen before I almost wanted to buy it.”

For the high school participants the show was a nerve-wracking but very unique experience that many had never been through.

“Henna and I practiced the dance outside of the room literally seconds before I was on stage,” Harchekar said. “I wasn’t too pleased with some of the things – like the way my hair was done – but I loved the dress and getting dolled up to wear it.”

The cat walk was adorned with intricate fabrics and a breath-taking assortment of flowers that gave the room a beautiful ambiance.

“We decided what to do that very day,” Amlani said. “Everything just kind of luckily fell together on stage, and Henna picked a really good song that we were both familiar with to perform to.”

The fashion shows, occurring every other hour, each represented clothes by different designers, demonstrating the vast number of different wedding outfit designs possible within the ever-expanding culture. In between breaks of the show, vendors of different wedding-related items, ranging from cakes to dresses to flowers, advertised to the brides attending the show.

Along with fashion performances, different Bollywood dances were performed as well. Thomas, along with her group of four other friends, choreographed a dance specifically for the event that had crowds applauding long after it had been completed.

Upon the end of the show, which was greeted with a standing ovation, the models all posed for various group pictures and returned their outfits reluctantly.

“I’d never thought of modeling before I did this,” Amlani said. “But it was really fun, surprisingly, and I can definitely see myself not minding to do it again sometime in the future.”

Video By Brian O’Connor