Bride of the month – July!
This month’s bride is Monisha Ashwin, a very enterprising woman entrepreneur. She cheerfully goes into the details of her wedding and the preparations that went into it.
I met Ashwin, my husband in yahoo chat about 6 years back n since then, I have always been dreaming about our dream wedding. We got engaged on June 29th,2012 and got married on November 23rd, 2012. Our sangeet was held on 22nd Nov at Raintree. It took us 5 months to plan every single thing in our wedding in detail and just like any other bride, I was very enthusiastic and took care of all the arrangements. Ours was an Arya Samaj wedding. We did not have too many rituals to follow but it was simple and nice to hear the meaning of all the rituals in detail.
WEDDING SHOPPING:
SANGEET: Dress: Lehanga from Kolkata “Senses” Jewellery: Kolkata “Jhalak” Footwear: Charles Keith
WEDDING: Dress: Palam Silks and Pothys Jewellery: VBJ, Joy Alukkas and Syndicate Footwear: Hammlys
RECEPTION: Dress: Moksha Jewellery: Surendra & co. Footwear: Hammlys
SERVICES: Tailor: Turquoise Design Studio by Nandhita Mehandi: Duriya for mehandi Make up: Rachel (Style Smith) and Meenal (Neelam Studios) Photography: Amar Ramesh Photography, Karmic Reflection Photography and Foton Studios Catering: Saraswati caterers TAILOR: When it comes to designer blouses, I can only think of Nandhita. She is an amazing designer who understands each and everyone’s taste and designs it accordingly.
She is very helpful and friendly to interact with and has a number of options too. I chose her because she is the only one who understands what I like and she did an amazing job for all my events.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Our wedding photographer was Amar Ramesh (@studio-a#) who did an excellent job. He customises the album according to our taste, which is awesome. We loved the candid album and cameo which was for 7mins. He did both our wedding and sangeet cinematography. We also had photographers from @foton# for other events.
MAKEUP: My makeup artist for sangeet was Rachel from Style Smith. She is someone who styles it according to our face shape. I didn’t discuss about my makeup and hair do for sangeet, because what she did for my engagement was simply unbelievable! I know it is not easy to enhance the looks of a dusky person which she did. She is very quick and it takes just an hour for her to do makeup and hairdo.
My package for sangeet included hairdo, make up, facial, waxing, pedicure and manicure. I got my nails done from Bounce (Isphahani Centre). They are the best for nail extensions, gel nails and nail arts. My make up for wedding was done by Meenal from Neelam Studio. She is another great artist who does her job very neatly. To be frank, I looked 100% better than what I thought it would be.It was very difficult for me to shop as I am very choosy about colours and designs. I was badly hunting for lehangas for about 3 months and finally got my sangeet lehanga from Senses in Kolkata and the reception one from Moksha. My wedding sarees were from Palam silks and Pothys. JEWELS, GARLANDS AND SET DESIGN: My jewellery shopping was easy and quick. It took me just 15 minutes to select my set from VBJ. I know that’s too quick but that’s the truth. Hehehe!! I got my bangles from Dubai “Joy Allukas” and Cochin “Malabar Gold and Diamonds”. My nethi chutti was designed by Queens Jewel Emporium, Coimbatore. Got my anklet from Jhalak(Kolkata).
My hair accessories were customised by Meenal. Set design was done by Mr.Chandrasekar and my garlands were done by Ms. Divya Chandrasekar. http://www.mayalok.com/
ENTERTAINMENT: For Reception, we had Revathi Krishnan who did a special performance. She is a very kind and down to earth person. She is the granddaughter of Shri Thillaisthanam Rama Iyengar. Sangeet was made special by the performances of super singers Santosh Hariharan and Pooja. Santosh and Pooja were very friendly and very importantly they entertained the crowd and made them dance and sing, which I felt was the best. HONEYMOON: For Honeymoon we went to New Zealand through Cox and Kings.
