For The Love Of Adventure - A Destination Wedding in Andaman!
A beautiful wedding in the shores of the Andaman! Lucky to have a lovely set of friends, Romika and Yash just cruised through their wedding planning! With the friends joining in the fun, the wedding happened in the breath - taking Havlock island and the frames captured by Varun Suresh vouch for it! So we met at a pub, not with the intention of getting married! But within a year of being together we realized there was no going back! So the wedding planning started and it was taking a toll on us. So on a Sunday afternoon, 6 months before we were actually supposed to get married, we were planning a diving trip to Andamans and decided to convert it into a wedding trip.
Within a span of two months, we registered the marriage in court (I had my sister fly down from the US on very short notice!). This was a very close family affair. We then pushed off to Havelock island with 23 friends for the wedding ceremony. So more than a destination wedding, it was a wedding trip!
It was a budgeted affair with minimal shopping! We picked up our clothes from Shahpurjat - The lehenga and jewellery from Abhinav Mishra. Abhinav's boutique was actually the first store we stepped into.
I just told him about the wedding and asked him to make something appropriate considering the venue and the size of the wedding! Then I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best - And no regrets!
The venue was Munjoh Resort in Havelock. We left the decoration and catering to them and they did a great job. Being a fairly isolated island sourcing is a huge challenge the alcohol (and lots of it!) had to be stocked up earlier, the decoration was what I suppose was growing in the neighbourhood but we loved the simplicity. Planning the logistics was crazy because there are very few flights and limited ferries from port Blair to Havelock.
The wedding was a two day affair we started off with haldi in the morning on day one, which was followed by a day on the beach.
We planned the mehendi and cocktail that night. We picked a friend who seemed to be the most artistic one, and there, we had our mehendi artist!
Considering it was a very late night the previous day, we all managed to get set for the wedding at 10 in the morning the next day. I didn't have a make up artist, a friend helped with the hair! The baraat arrived in a boat with a handheld speaker for the music, and of course beer!
They say if it rains on your wedding day you are lucky. By this logic I'm the luckiest girl on the planet. Starting from the fourth phera, it poured 3 hours straight.
The rain didn't spoil the fun though, we were holding on to six sun umbrellas to cover the mandap and everyone squeezed in and made the most of it.
The evening of the wedding day was a dinner set up at the beach the whole set up was beautiful and all you could see was the sea, the sand and the candles! A crazy night with a very enthusiastic bartender.
The photographer was Varun Suresh and we were lucky to have Venkat join us as well!. When it started pouring on the wedding day we were honestly not even expecting pictures! But these two somehow managed to capture the magic that it was. It was a very adventurous, crazy wedding with twisted ankles, missed ferries, falling off trees, broken furniture, wardrobe malfunctions. But it was magical because everyone who was there - was there, without any mobile network, cameras, not worrying about what the humidity was doing to the hair!
The honeymoon was an extended week in Havelock half of the wedding party ended up staying back the week. Yash, besides getting married also became an advanced diver.