You think it's not easy to accommodate Traditions while still sticking to a trendy side of modern. Well with a couple like Sahaana and Rajiv and both side of families being the most supportive, it is EASY! The bride has managed to make it much easy on the ambience, by even getting all decked up in a dazzle Indo-Western outfit! It's amazing how creative brides get these days. It's ok to want all of it, from Traditions to Trends for your big day! As long as it's put out well like how Sahaana just managed to balance it out.
Hi Guys! First of all, I am very excited and happy to share our wedding story with Shopzters. I have been a sincere follower of the blog ever since my engagement and wedding dates were fixed. I always used to look forward for new posts and tips shared by Shopzters to plan my wedding.
My name is Sahaana, I am an MBA graduate from United Kingdom and so is my husband Rajiv. We both knew each other for about 8 years. We never thought days would change as the time goes, we became best friends and time came once for me to pursue my studies in Bangalore and I had to move. That was when the spark started between the two and the distance made us feel the love and affection we had for each other beyond friendship. When I was leaving Chennai, Rajiv expressed his love for me and that moment without any thought I knew it was him! My next answer was 'Yes'! We then pursued our masters in UK together and were looking forward for our big day once we were back in India.
Our families were very happy when they knew about us because they did expect us to be more than friends! :) They had an instinct for it before we even fell in love :) They were super excited and wanted only the best for me, as I am their only daughter.
We had planned to do our wedding a proper Tam-Bram one without missing any rituals.
Both the families formally met in December 2014 and decided the Engagement date to be on 22nd April 2015. It was held in PRC Centenary hall, T. Nagar (*perfect one*) after searching for so many mini halls for the function. Our wedding date was fixed for 22nd October 2015.
Everyone was really excited and we had almost six months to plan all the little details that had to go into our wedding. I would say six months seemed long enough but it does fly at the blink of an eye! :)
Since we planned for traditional wedding it was for 2 full days of gala & fun with family and friends. My family is a big one and to get-together for occasions will be more than just fun :) The first thing we did was to book our wedding venue. We were looking for the best venue within city as both the families preferred to have it for better access by our guests.
After coming across many halls we decided to block our dates in Nagi Reddi Hall, Vadapalani Chennai. It was such a nice hall with great space for parking and we did look for good location spots for our photography too ;) Each outdoor occasion and photo shoot were wonderfully captured by our Photographers.
It was very challenging to plan and organize the wedding though many blogs and apps like shopzters, pinterest etc helped us to a greater extent with new trendy ideas to go with. Since I am the only daughter it was even more challenging to go around plan myself for every little thing which I wanted to be perfect while I have to sneak out from work :D But the feel of the D-day when you see and feel the things you planned have come out the best! Bliss!!!
The next thing we planned after the wedding venue was the caterers. We chose VR caterers from Ullagaram. They are like our family caterers for every occasion and without any thought we fixed them for my wedding. We had outsourced everything from A-Z of wedding arrangement in mandapam to them. He had made lovely arrangement of sugar dolls, vegetable carvings and other stalls during our wedding. He had taken care of the wedding garlands and did exactly what we had asked for. It was all perfect and the food was outstanding!
We did not think much for photography because Rajiv and I had decided we must go with only @zero-gravity# photography for our wedding! :) We hired them as a complete package for Engagement, Pre-wedding shoot and for the wedding. They portrait the story of the occasion beautifully in pictures highlighting the emotions & details that made our wedding day one of most important days of our life. The best moment captured to me was the thali moment.
They not only focused on us but also our family & friends during the wedding. The chemistry between us was perfectly captured in the photoshoots.
They planned our pre-wedding shoot location to be Ooty and woah! It made heads turn and fall in love with their photography even more.
The boring lengthy videography of the wedding days are gone, they make interesting short videos of the occasions and cinematic trailers of wedding and reception which looks neat and entertaining.
Talking about the decorator, Nagi Reddi hall have their own decorator. We decided to go for one of his decoration styles done before for reception whereas we made a new arrangement for the muhurtham stage.
I must thank Shopzters and Pinterest for lot of nice ideas for the muhurtham stage and oonjal decorations.
The decorator did altogether a new setup and it turned out to be the best and perfect! Muhurtham garland and Reception garland was done by Ravi florists in Koyambedu Flower market.
He also did the garlands and Venni matching to the saree colours.
Coming to my make-up artist I wanted a simple and elegant look and also something that suits my skin better, as it is very sensitive. I tried some top makeup professionals and found Make-up artist Venkatesh. He did a great job with the make-up, hair-do for muhurtham and the Reception make-up & styling was the best of the lot! He did a fantastic work and made everyone talk about it!
We had a small mehendi session in our home along with my family and friends. Mehendi was done by Madras Mehndi Studio (MMS). I must say Sujitha is such an energetic lady and a perfectionist! She took almost 5 hours for my mehndi and guess what? I never thought I will have such an amazing outcome. Her minute details to designs had me spellbound. She did an amazing work for my family members too.
We did not have a sangeet but rather we had a DJ arranged for our reception. Rajiv and I planned for some light music for the wedding.
But later during the last month of the wedding we decided to go for a DJ night in reception and yes it was one of the best decisions made.
DJ - Zen made it perfect. We met him and discussed about our requirements. He explained on different ideas for the evening and it was like so much fun on the big day!
The stage setup, lighting, dance floor, MC were all done perfectly and I would say it brought out the kid within us and forget not to mention our family members too, who enjoyed in spite of saying NO initially :)
Talking about my costumes, I went to the doors of each and every store in Chennai to pick the best saree for my wedding. I decided that I want each color for each occasion. I did not reach out to Kancheepuram for my wedding sarees but here in Tulsi, Palam, Sundari silks, Varamahalakshmi, Pothys I found them to my taste. All the sarees that I chose were pure silk with different designs in it like Elephant, Annam, peacock and lotus.
The sarees were complimented with the best, my one and only @mana-design-studioclothing# in Gopalapuram. I had first approached them for my engagement blouses.
I must say Aarthi is always full of ideas and innovative designs. First time ever I made a boat neck designed blouse for my silk saree with lot of second thoughts but no! The end result by her was more than words could just say. It made me fall in love with her designs for blouses. All my wedding blouses were stitched by them uniquely. The suggestions and ideas they had for my blouses were amazing.I wanted to go for a simple saree for muhurtham which was bought in Tulsi silks, a mustard color saree with a differently designed blouse at the back.
Following that was Nichayathartham for which I wore Neon green saree bought in Palam Silks complimented with a wonderful blouse with a tree design on the sleeve.
Not one went without complimenting the blouse work. My Oonjal saree was never tough for me. I wanted something beautiful and in Pink! I had gone to Varamahalakshmi in Mylapore and yes right there I found the saree I wanted.
You see that and you know it's yours! It was a gorgeous heavy silk saree with beautiful work on it. There again I had worn a different styled cut work blouse for the oonjal saree.It was the best blouse to me at the wedding.
The 9-yards saree was bought in Varamahalakshmi again where I chose the usual traditional color. I had gone for a golden color blouse with white Kundan work on it.
The gold jewels were bought in GRT, NAC jewellery in Chennai. I went for minimal gold jewellery for the wedding and had hired my oonjal accessories and nichayathartham ones in Swarnaprabhu jewellery, Mylapore. They have excellent collections if you look for hiring few accessories. Few other bangles, earrings were all bought in Sowcarpet & Narayana pearls.
Rajiv always wanted me to wear an Indo - western gown for our wedding. Luckily both of our parents didn't have any objection in me wearing a gown. So the hunt started for finding the best gown for the reception. As most of the colors like mustard, pink, red, green, blue, yellow gold were all worn for the engagement and wedding sarees I was particular not to repeat it on my reception gown.
I finally found the one in Kay which was orange silk indo-western gown with high neck and full sleeve design. It was simple and elegant look. I had bought a golden glitter shoe for the gown in INC 5 and didnt have many accessories to wear for the gown except for a white stone earring.
Rajiv got his grey colored tuxedo suit stitched at His Studios, T Nagar. They did amazing work on his nichayathartham bandi too.
I wanted every detail at our wedding to be perfect and so everyone right from caterer, decorator, photographer, makeup artist and blouse designers were all continuously pestered with so many questions and enquiries. But then everything went perfectly well and it was more than what we expected :)
I did not follow any special beauty sessions for the wedding. I ate healthy fruits and natural skin care as always. I went for a facial 4 days before the wedding and a normal bridal session done.
I would say beautiful heart; radiant smile makes us look more beautiful than anything else. To the new bride-to-bes out there, do not get tensed, be relaxed, everything will fall into place. Do not plan things till the last minute, finish all planning a month before and enjoy your time with family. Make everything simple and you are going to shine like star on your D-day !!!
We decided it should be Switzerland for our honeymoon long before even the wedding date was planned ;) It is one of the most scenic places I have ever seen. We had booked as a package through Make My Trip and our stay there were all in best hotels in city.
Exploring ourselves in the city and high Alps, snow, top of Europe were all just awesome! It was a magical escape after hectic & busy wedding days!!! A must visit place in Europe :)
Thank you Shopzters for giving me an opportunity to share my experience. Watch out for this blog as it really helps for the soon to be brides on anything and everything you need :)
