A Delightful South Indian Wedding With An Array Of Surprises!

Brindha and Shankar knew each other. They liked each other. But neither of them confessed their love for the other. Then how did they get married? Read on to know it from the horse’s mouth!

I am Brindha from Tirupur. I graduated from PSG, Coimbatore. I saw Shankar Gunasekaran for the first time at an icecream shop where he had come to meet his cousin, my best friend. I was then in my first year of college and he was in his final year. That was in 2010 and I’ve known him since.

That was the beginning. We met frequently and soon we became family friends. On completing my graduation, I found a job in Bangalore and he was doing business in Titupur. One day my mom called and gave me the biggest shock of my life. That my marriage is almost fixed. The best part was that he approached his parents as well as my parents. He got their permission and saved me from the stress of announcing to my parents.

This was the best gift he could ever give to me. I had no role in speaking to my parents, something that every girl feels difficult to convey. The saddest part is that he never proposed to me before our wedding got fixed. In fact, I didnt even know that he loved me till my parents informed me of my wedding! :).

Since we came from similar family backgrounds, it was not difficult for our parents to accept our marriage. Then we had  almost a year until the date of our wedding. We had enough and more time to plan the wedding and go shopping!

My engagement was on June 2016 and We went to kancheepuram as well as @mahaveers-the-silk-peopleclothing# for saree shopping .We got the best collections from @a-s-babu-sah# and the gold  jewellery for my engagment was from Sabari jewellers, Tirupur.

The diamond jewellery gifted by him was from Sumangali Jewellers Coimbatore. From my childhood all our jewellery purchases were from Sabari jewellers. I had a lot of options to design the jewellery to my liking and they helped me a lot. On the other hand his family was loyal customers of @sumangali-jewellersshoppingretail#. So I got the best options from both the jewellery shops.

I loved my ottiyanam because of its intricate workmanship. We purchased it purchased from Sabari jewellers. Since we had enough time for our wedding, again we went to kancheepuram for wedding shopping. Both the families went together to Kancheepuram and all our silk sarees were bought there.

My reception saree - Light flourescent green with two borders (orange and purple) and muhurtham saree (red) were from Babu shah. I was very particular about having a red saree for muhurtham which was appropriate for the occassion.

My blouses were designed by Shanthini, Prathiksham boutique, Tirupur. They took special care of my blouses and prepared unique desings for my reception and wedding blouse. The highlight was my wedding blouse which has the embroidery of Goddess Lakshmi with two eleplants on each side similar to the desings in Nakas jewellery.

His suit was bought from Blackberry, Banglore.

Makeup for my engagement was done by my friend Anusha, who is a makeup artist and makeup for my marriage was done by Uma's parlour, Erode. I’m not fond of make-up and was not aware of that field. I left it to the choice of my friends. They co operated and my make up was complimented by everyone. My facial was done by my personal beautition Nathira, because of whom my face looked clear and fresh. She was my mehendhi artist too.

Catreing was from Tirupur - Velliangire and the stage decoration of Mani Mahal was done by Sarasu Decorators, who also designed a beautiful photobooth similar to a facebook page of us.

Our wedding fuctions lasted for 2 days. First day morning we will be going to mandapam from home, followed by Pattinisadham virundhu in the afternoon, followed by muhurthakal and reception in the evening, followed by Enaiseer and Mapillai Alaipu which took place around 11 at night.The next morning was muhurtham, followed by going to groom's house and bride's house and then again afternoon Virundhu in the mandapam.

The next biggest surprise was given by my family which is the sudden Sangeeth planned by them. Only very close relatives were there on that day (3 days prior to wedding) and he alone came as chief guest to surprise me. All my siblings, cousins and kids performed seperate dances for us and finally him. Next my cousins conducted a ConnexIons game and then followed by a acting competition where each pair of husband and wife should perform the 2 minutes video played on the Led screen behind. It was the most happiest day of my lifetime to have so much fun and pampering from my family.Feeling extremely lucky.

The main attraction of the wedding was the Photography which was done by @studio-vaibhava# whom we have known for a long time. It was comfortable to work with them. To celebrate the success of our marriage we wanted to try a different thing and so we decided to a cinematic duet song shoot. So shopping for the outdoor photoshoot was done together to get the colour combo work done in a better way. All costumes were purchased from Lifestyle and Venitton, Coimbatore.

The next difficult task was to select the location for the song shoot and finally decided to go to Thailand. Marriage was on Sept 11, 2016 and we went for Song shoot in Oct 2016. We were accompanioed by the best photographer of the Studio Viabhava team, Vinod who was extremely talented and patient enough to take repeated shots and make us to perform .The result is the song which you can see when you type Shankar Brindha in YouTube.

We went there on a package and had fun time shooting there. Shooting was done in Jamesbond island, PhiPhi island, Fantasea show, Phuket Beach, Coral island and the places in and around Phuket. It was an amazing experience. To perform before a camera was the best part of the wedding. Heartful thanks to Prassanna, Studio Vaibhava who  helped make our trip memorable.The photographer did the shoot for 4 days and came back to India and we continued our honeymoon there for 4 more days which was filled with all adventurous activities like parasailing, underwater show etc.