Hi - I'm popping in from the South Asian board. I'm a Christian marrying a Hindu guy. Our wedding will be in a pretty rural area that doesn't do many Hindu or Jewish weddings. We'd been planning to build our own mandap for our Hindu ceremony. Our florist told us that she'd actually done a mandap before, but that she charged that couple quite a bit of money because she had to build it from scratch. The design she showed us actually looks a lot like the free-standing chuppahs used in outdoor weddings. It's basically an 8x8 structure with some wrougt-iron columns draped in fabric. There aren't any of the extras like chairs or the ornate carvings that you often see in mandaps, so it seemed like it might make more sense to find out how much florists charge to assemble and drape chuppahs. She hasn't given me a price yet (she's only ever decorated it for the couple she charged to build it and isn't sure what to charge us), but I thought I'd try to get a sense of what's "reasonable" before I try to negotiate with her. I'm still prepared to DIY, but if I can do this through the florist at a reasonable price it may make sense to just let them do it. Thanks so much!