An Intimate Tam Brahm Wedding in Chennai

Hi everyone! First of all, I have to say that it feels so great to be writing for Shopzters! I have been a very religious follower of the blog ever since I came across it while planning for my wedding. I almost waited for every new blog post with as much excitement as for my wedding.

My name is Pavithra, I am a doctoral student in Switzerland and so is my husband Sriniketh. We both met at an Indian party here and slowly got on to becoming friends. Sparks started flying when we started talking more and more due to him getting a frostbite in my lab. And then there was no looking back, he asked me very casually if I wanted to get married to him and I said yes as if this is what I was waiting for!

Our families were super happy that we found each other and wanted to hold the wedding as soon as possible. I always wanted a not very extravagant wedding, but wanted to have all the rituals.

The families formally met in May 2014 and the wedding date was fixed to be 23rd January 2015. The wedding was held in Chennai, although my parents are based in Pune. Chennai was assumed to be convenient to all the guests. Everyone was very excited. We had almost seven to eight months to plan all the little details that go into a wedding.

We always knew that we wanted to have a traditional tamil brahmin wedding..2 days of full fun. The first thing we did once we had the date was booking the wedding venue..We loved the premises at Hare Krishna Movement, Thiruvanmiyur. All the open area, proximity to the beach was simply beautiful.

The open lawns to have the oonjal, the reception, photoshoots at the beach, the beach winds throughout the wedding were mesmerizing. They also provided their own catering which was great. It was quite a challenge to plan the wedding from such a distance, though as everyone has said..resources like shopzters, all the online facebook boutiques and of course how can I forget Skype and whatsapp have been so useful. The next things were the costumes, photographer, makeup artist, decorator etc etc.

We had an immense photographer hunt, had Skype sessions with photographers, contacted innumerable photographers and finally zeroed down on @light-story#. Vijesh was really nice to us, answered all our questions patiently, asked us to tell him what kind of pictures we like and we loved him for that! Rest, the pictures speak for themselves.

Do I still need to say they did a great job? Ofcourse I must not forget to mention his eye for detail.. and an incident as well. I am not fond of the milk and banana mix they give at our tam brahm weddings..And I winced every time I had to drink it and he captured these moments too! It was fun to have the photography team around, do all the photoshoots with them.

The same hunt then continued for the decorator. And after looking at all the decoration pictures, I chose Pandian decorators. I could rave about them too..they did such a great job, were very professional, replicated everything as I wanted, endured detailed discussions with me about each flower garland, each session decor over Skype sessions, emails, phone calls etc.

Then I decided to take a small shopping holiday to Indian in September so I could choose my sarees, have my blouses tailored and fix a makeup artist. I had a makeup trial with Mrs. Srividya Saravanan and she was really nice. She took care of makeup for my Nichyatartham, Muhurtam and Reception.

She did a pre - bridal session for me. She also arranged for Mehendi, which was done my Mrs. Nirmala, she was also very friendly and warm, came home to do the mehendi, also got people to do it for some other relatives.

For the sarees, I was super picky and went to every shop I saw in Chennai. It was a shopping marathon for a week. I purchased only one saree from one shop, not as a plan..but thats what I ended up liking. I loved the collections of silk sarees at Tulsi silks, Sarangi, Prakash silks in Kancheepuram. They had exclusive collections that matched my taste.

I am a stickler for the traditional Kancheepuram pattu sarees with intricate designs and traditional motifs like the peacock, yali, elephant etc. I purchased one saree each at Tulsi silks, Palam silks, Prakash silks, Kumaran Silks. I also wanted to have different colors of sarees for each function, also wanted fresh colors. So it was a light green for the Vratham, pink saree initially for the Nichyatartham and then changed to a royal purple one.

The oonjal saree was green with red border (always imagined the oonjal saree this way)..the search for this saree was never ending. It was quite difficult to find these traditional korvai sarees that I loved so much.The koora podavai (9 yards) was maroon and green.. I wanted the traditional maroon and with a color combination and what could get better than maroon and green! I got other chiffon, mysore silk, designer sarees for smaller functions as well.

The designer saree for the reception was from a small shop in Pune. I loved the soft and different color of this saree, it was not very heavy that it could not be managed. It was perfect for me!

I got all the blouses stitched in Pune. I was sure that I did not want to have very heavy blouses with the already very grand sarees. So I went for simple and clean designs.

I wanted to buy very minimal gold jewelry, just delicate pieces that I could wear often and thats exactly what I got. I bought some footwear and little accessories online since I had no time to go buy it.

I wanted to know every detail, everything that will happen at the wedding, everything that was required.. so everyone was pestered with several questions..the photographer, makeup artist, my mother, my mother in law, everyone possible basically. Still there were surprises planned for us.. the wedding cake with our picture, a caricature model depicting us..it was all great.

I wanted everything to be simple but perfect. Everything was purchased after lot of investigation that it is indeed the best buy. But finally I was relaxed and happy at the wedding and happier now after the wedding.

I didn't do that much for wedding preparation for my skin and body as such. I am usually always for healthy eating (a fan of Rujuta Diwekar), so that wasn't any different before the wedding. I tried to take a bit more care of my skin than I usually so, keep it moisturized in the harsh winter (P.S. I already stopped doing this now that the wedding is done). The pre bridal session that I took was also pretty basic, just one session of the usual grooming. I advise everyone reading out there to just be calm, be your usual self, not stressed and your happy smile will be the best ornament at your weddings and all of you will be the most beautiful and charming of brides.

We didn't have enough holidays left for a honeymoon, but we enjoyed the time spent after the weddings at a temple tour with our parents and parents in law and the little time we spent with all the relatives back home. Now we are still in our honeymoon phase, of course we live in a great honeymoon destination..do we really need to go elsewhere?