Bride of the month - August'14!

Again another endearing friend of mine through Shopzters! We have often had long discussions regarding everything related to weddings. She is a person who has immaculate taste for the best things in life! Pleased to feature buoyant young bride Madhumitha Suresh as the bride of the month!

 Hey Shopzters fans! Here is Madhumitha from Coimbatore writing it for you. Featuring in Shopzters is such a delight and I have re-lived each and every moment of my wedding planning while writing this. Btw, if you find my face a little familiar, don't give it much a thought for you would have seen my picture on Shopzterz fb page. Yes, for I'm the one who won the Valentine's Day photoshoot contest with Smiles and Dreams (Srinivas). If you are looking for the photoshoot pictures (he..he), let me tell it now itself that the photoshoot is still not done and it has been finally scheduled for next month. Srinivas, Naren and my dates didn't match all this while:P :P

 

 What is meant to be will always find its way. This is so true in my case because I didn't have a slightest clue I'll be marrying Naren when I met him in UK. He was like one among my many friends there. After a year, we parted ways and hardly stayed in touch. After two years, one fine day, we get a proposal from his family as we belong to the same community. My parents were excited as they have met him once in UK and thought it's better to get their daughter married to a known person than to an unknown stranger and so did I. Our horoscopes matched and the dates were fixed. Despite knowing him as a friend, after we were engaged I should say I surprisingly saw a new him as my fiance, things which I had never known existed in him as a friend. Until this moment, I don't know what made me say ok to him or why I love him so much. Maybe as said, Love has no reasons and if it does it's not love.

 In full josh, then the wedding planning began! I had nine whole months after my engagement on Sep 9th '13 to plan my wedding on June 9th '13 and I should say I made full utilization of that long time gap. From big decisions, meeting various vendors, DIY tasks, designing and decorating, there were a few "ugh" moments and lots of celebrations along the way to cherish.

 During the nine months, I can say I logged onto Shopzters website almost every day to check current trends, photographers and lot more. Shopzters is the directory for all the bride needs, I should say.

 Invites Being a person of details, I give importance to every bit and my mind can't be at peace until I'm pleased with the outcome. So I started working on my invite months ahead and it was the first thing I started working on. I spent almost 2 months working on it. My immense love for warli designs and stick figures made me decide I should design my invite something related to it. I drew inspirations from various sites and completely designed and wrote the words on my own. Lotus cards (Coimbatore) very patiently worked with me and neatly executed the design as I wanted.

 Sarees Then came the saree shopping.( Even before my wedding was fixed I had decided to wear only silk sarees for all the functions for I always feel nothing can beat the beauty of our pattu sarees.) I didn't have much of a choice regarding store to shop from as my mum-in-law had lot of sentiments for Kumaran Silks, Chennai and so we had to stick to it. But I should say I was happy that she took me there for they had such beautiful amazing sarees and it was so easy to pick all the sarees in one stop.

 My blouses were designed by Anya, Nyshka Design studio, Maliboo and Flair Designers. My very pretty reception blouse was done at Nyshka Design Studio and my muhurtham blouse was designed in Bangalore by my sis-in-law.

 Gold & Diamonds: Most of my gold jewelries were from Karpagam Jewellers (CBE), Big Shop (Ooty ) and diamonds from JCS (Chennai). I should credit my beautiful jewelry collection to my mum who hand-picked the best for me. It was only because of her I started to like wearing jewelry. My favourites would be my fish jhumki from Amarapali and my muhurtham nethichuti from Big Shop.

 Makeup & Mehandi: After lot of research, confusion and even discussion with Prasitha, I decided to go with Neelam Studio, Chennai coz I didn't want to take a chance at my wedding. I should definitely say Ms. Meenal Momaya did a brilliant job which can be evidently seen in all the pictures. The makeup was on till the end of both my functions (wedding & reception).

 Mehendi was done by Mrs.Meeta whose work was very intricate and excellent. We had a mehandi function attended by my friends and relatives.

 Photography & food: Regular photography was done by Mano Studios, Chennai who has been our family photographer for years. Candid photography was done by @vipin# of @vipin# Photography. His pictures were excellent and it was so much fun working with him. Videos were done by Aiswarya Videos (spl thanks to Prasitha for convincing me to go with them.) Food was the biggest hit of my wedding. All the varieties were so deliciously prepared by the famous Lakshmi Catering (Mathampatti Rangaraj).

 Decor & Entertainment: Since I had known Mark1 Wedding Decors personally for more than a year, I decided to go with them for the decor. Mandap was occupied until June 8th morning so we hardly had 3-4 hrs in hand to decorate. So our choice was limited. Keeping that in mind, for reception, I chose a set which looked regal, rich, bright and ethnic. For muhurtham, it was a traditional thirupathi set. We were stuck with minimum decor for the entrance and pathway due to time constraint.

 Instead of usual orchestra for entertainment, my dad wanted to bring in cultural dance forms from various states. So we brought in kathakali, kuchipudi, bhangra etc., styles to perform at my reception. Mark1 did a brilliant job in organizing and managing the team.

Return Gift: Just like me, my mum also likes things to be different and unique. So for our thambulam bags instead of the usual jute bags we decided to give nicely designed potli bags. After digging lot on internet, we found Giftag (Ritu Chowdhry, Mumbai ) who made beautiful digital prints on raw silk potli bags with our name tags. It was complimented by all our guests.

 And of course, I can't fail to mention our beautiful 21 aarthi plates which were so creatively decorated by Divya & Sabitha of Saangyas.

Helpful hints for all brides-to-be: *Being a dusky skin toned girl, lot of people has asked me to do this and that to get a brighter skin. But me, with a damn sensitive skin chose to eat healthy and stay away from sun and it really worked. So if you have a sensitive skin, it's better to stay away from facials and peels unless you have found something that really suits your skin.

 *Despite lot of planning, few things may not go your way. At such times its better to be calm and think what you can do next rather than to panic or stress-out. Why let small things ruin your happy mood? It's your Day so just go unleash your happiness :)

 Every bride has her own dreams and wishes when it comes to her wedding, so did I. I'm so lucky to have such awesome mum and dad who took pains to set each and everything and made my wedding a dream-come-true wedding for me. Also, I truly thank the stars for not only making Naren and I cross paths in life but for merging both of ours into one.