Bride Of The Month, January'16 - Kavya Mahesh

Every time a Bride mentions 'From Scratch', we get really inquisitive. It totally gives us a thrill to know how she did it all. We were right, Kaviya, an Entertainment Journalist sure knew how to get things done. After covering on media some amazing Wedding Stories, she was probably pretty sure of what she wanted and how she wanted things at her Wedding. Trust us, that much of clarity is one big relief when you start off on your Wedding Plans! Keep reading to find out how she even got specifically and exclusively designed Kanchipuram Sarees.

Let me introduce myself, Im Kaviya. I graduated with a Masters in Journalism, from MOP Vaishnav College, Chennai. While working as an entertainment journalist, I had covered a lot of Big-Fat-Indian weddings that really caught my attention. So when it came to my Wedding I wanted to do it all by myself from scratch!

We are a joint family with more than 40 of us and mine was a Wedding everyone had been looking forward to. My husband, Mahesh runs a movie production and distribution company, Auraa Cinemas. We got engaged on April 3rd. We wanted to have a very traditional engagement ceremony. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any 'Traditional' sort of venues. So we had our engagement at Royal Palms, Coimbatore.

We had invited about for 300 very close friends and relatives for engagement. The best part of our engagement was the food. We had traditional dishes of Coimbatore done by Madampatti Lakshmi catering. Rangaraj anna, being a good family friend of ours, selected the menu and did the best for us.

I have an elder sister and a younger sister. They, along with me were in green, including my dad and my fianc. I got my green saree from Babu Shah, Kanchipuram. My second saree was gold and pink based one, also purchased from Babu Shah. We designed Maheshs outfit according to my saree pattern.

Ive always loved everything about Kanchipuram sarees, so it was all specially ordered and done. My mother-in-law is from Kanchi and that helped a lot. I didn't want to repeat my jewellery so I wore Pearl with Nagas work from Suman Jewellery for my engagement.

I got beautiful yellow with pink saree for my Nalangu.

I was so specific not to wear a red color saree for Muhurtham, so I wore a gold saree with red border. I wore blood red saree with contrast blue traditional elephant designed blouse from Shrisha boutique for PonAzhaippu function. It was one of the best sarees I wore.

I didn't want to wear Lehenga for my Sangeet because I felt it won't be comfortable for me to dance. So I picked a fluorescent green Anarkali. It was like a complete make-over into a North Indian style with Bulakku and Kundan Jewellery.

For the most important part, the Wedding, as mentioned earlier, I designed and got done a gold colored saree with red border with traditional chakras and annam designs and I matched it with the Kundanwork blouse from Shrisha.

I matched it with traditional antique jewelry from Ooty Big Shop. My favourite Nagas Vanki, Antique Necklace and other jewellery like oddiyanam were from the same shop.

For Reception I wore pink with gold saree from Kanchipuram with contrast green color zardosi blouse that matched with Diamond jewellery designed by MS diamonds, our family friend.

My younger sister is a very talented designer. She designed my blouses for all the events at Shrisha Boutique.

Chennai reception was at Leela Palace, it was a fairytale reception, my personal favorite. We went with complete western style outfits. My dress was designed by ManMandir, Chennai. It was simply the most elegant dress Ive ever worn. I was specific not to wear too much jewelry so I wore a cute choker.

We had a personal designer for Mahesh. Gabbana(Osman from Chennai), a good friend of mine, designed all his costumes.

For the engagement he wore pink jacket with beige shirt and blue jeans matching my saree. He wore kurta and Nehru Jacket for Mapillai Azhaippu. At my Sangeet, he wore a waist-coat with jeans.

We needed Traditional outfits for the Wedding. Hence, Mahesh was in his pattu shirt stitched by Osman with a turban. For the reception, he wore an Indo-Western outfit. All his accessories from watch to shoes were also picked by Osman.

For the men on the Wedding Scene, which was a big gang, I thought it would be great if they were color coded. So they were color coded as brothers, friends, groom family, kids with different colors of course. It came out well on the Wedding Pictures too!

Our friends from The Chennai Wedding Filmer took care of photography and videography, they did the best job. I just loved their Candid Shots.

I also had a special bridal photo shoot before my wedding by The Chennai Wedding Filmer.

Our wedding was scheduled on August 21st, which sweetly happened to be the same day Mahesh and I met in 2014. We were hunting for Mandapam but since it was one of the most happening Muhurtham dates we were left with lesser options. Lucky enough we got Codissia C Hall.

Every girl at some point must have dreamed about her wedding and I was so lucky to have mine come true.

I have always wanted to have lot of events and have wanted to do a lot of shopping for my wedding. And thats exactly what I got.

We had a lovely Pandhakaal, uppuvangara function and Nalangu on the same day. Pen Azhaippu and Mappillai Azhaippu went on so perfectly. A fun session of Sangeeth, a full-fledged Big-Fat-Wedding, one reception in Coimbatore and one in Chennai. That's like Six Events and I loved shopping for all of them!

Three months of all the Wedding Shopping fun and I enjoyed every bit of it. I must say, without my younger sister Prashanthi, it would have been impossible for me. A Big Thanks to her. That's what sisters are for and I have the best!

We specially designed our invites from Shankesvar, Chennai. They were amazingly creative.

Both our families are Baba devotees, so we wanted a Baba picture and Perumal with our name embossed with some good fragrance and it was done perfectly. We also gave special Arabian sweets with the invite.

Decors were done by @jeevithadecorwedding-planning-event#, Coimbatore, a good friend of ours and I must say they did an awesome job.

We wanted an antique style muhurtham and crystals for reception and left the rest for them to be creative with it. They did their best in decor, I loved their Malai design for Murtham and Reception.

Chennai reception was done by Ragini Decors. She did an amazing job with fairy concept, an arch and good backdrop with cold fires while walking. Ragini made a cute caricature of us, left hanging at the back of the banquet chairs with expensive real flowers.

Raginis husband is an art director for films. Working as an Entertainment Journalist in film industry, I had good contacts in the field, so I wanted them to be a part of our wedding.

As for Make-Up, I love the work of @make-up-ibrahim#. He is my good friend too and unfortunately he couldn't make it for my Wedding. So he did make-up for my Chennai reception, as amazing as always!

For Coimbatore events I had Raju anna, he is also working in the film industry and also is Actress Trishas personal make-up artist, luckily he was available for all my Coimbatore events. He did a great job. I was so lucky to have everything the way I expected.

Actor SivaKumar is our very good family friend. He usually heads all our family weddings. We were so glad he could be there for our wedding too. He also came with son Karthi for our Chennai Reception. My husband is also from the Film industry, working with Auraa Cinemas, a production company, so lot of celebrities graced our Chennai reception.