Marriage was something that I was terrified of. I wasn’t even ready for marriage and was so sure that it wouldn’t be any time in the near future. But everything turned upside down just in a year and I’m already married now! My profile was put up in Tamil matrimony by my parents, and My husband, Arjun came across my profile and informed his parents that he was interested. They contacted my family and my mom told me to check out his profile, as she felt good after talking to his family over the phone. I playfully looked into his profile along with my friend and then agreed to talk to him.
Though we both in the US, we live miles apart. Arjun first texted me on WhatsApp on September 15th, 2016. We got along so well just in a few minutes. We didn’t have any awkward conversation. I felt as if I was chatting with my childhood friend and he said that the feeling was mutual. We started talking and texting on phone for hours. I felt the magic, as almost everything was compatible between us, same life goals, friendly and humorous nature. I began to feel “He is the one” and fell in love with him apparently, but just pretended as if I needed some more time. We decided to meet and he flew down to my city in the US.
I was so nervous to meet him and even begged him to go back. Ha ha ha ha! Perhaps, I picked him at the airport and would never forget the moment I met him for the first time. I totally could see the love in his eyes every time he looked at me. Our first date went great, and after a month, we decided to meet again in Vegas for our second date. We took a road trip to Vegas together and got some time to know more about each other. It was one amazing trip. Both our families gave us the freedom to date for couple of months. Finally, we decided to get married. The engagement was held in the US with close families and friends on December 4th, 2016. That day was so special, because it was also my mom’s and my best friend’s birthday.
I have always wanted to encounter a romantic proposal and he knew about it. So, he arranged a surprise proposal on my birthday, July 23rd, 2017, and the day was filled with full of surprises that he had planned along with my few close friends and my sister. We even had a photoshoot that he planned as a part of the surprise at the Capital State Building in Salt Lake City, US. I was dressed in a white gown and he was in a Tux. That was one hell of a day to remember forever.
Marriage Details:
We had ample of time to plan for the wedding, but the challenge was to coordinate everything from the US. Luckily, we had our entire family and friends support, and my sister helped us a ton in arranging everything. We printed two different wedding invitation cards, one traditional for the families and the other one customized for our friends. We went for a movie themed wedding card and we chose “OK Sharmili” as the movie name and it was uniquely designed and printed by “Thatone” card in Chennai. Our wedding website “Arjunlovessharmili.net” was created by my close friend, Gautham and it came out so well. He took great care of capturing each and every precious detail in the website. It was fun creating the website and recording the “About him/Her” videos for the website.
Our marriage was held at Kalaignar Aragam on the August 27th morning and the same day evening was our reception. We loved the Royal palms resort, Injambakkam the minute we all visited it, so we had our Mehandi and Sangeet events there on August 25th. The emcee for the sangeet was done by our friends and they totally got the crowd engaged. Special thanks to Govardhan anna and Praveen to pull it off well.
We wanted everything to be unique and nice in our wedding. So, Me and my husband researched a lot before booking each and every vendor. We first booked the photographer, @creative-wedding-photography#. We loved their work and to our belief they did a tremendous job and were super friendly. We had a post wedding photoshoot in Chennai and also miniature shots taken in their studio. For Decoration, we booked Ganesh for our Sangeet, as he has been the regular decorator for the Royal Palms. To our surprise, the sangeet decoration was great and the night was also fun filled and entertained by DJ Zen.
Me and my husband performed on our cute love dance story – “how it all began!” I so enjoyed practicing with him and had so many fun and romantic rehearsals. For the Muhurtham and Reception, Jayakumar from Nengal Kaettavai did our décor. He kept the Muhurtham décor simple and gave us a grand and splendid décor for the reception. The most significant part of the wedding is food. And I should say, our parents were right in choosing Kamalabal caterers. They did a fine job for all my three events, and we had different and unique menu for each event.
I got my wedding sarees from Kanchipuram and @kumaran-silks#, Tnagar. All my blouses, including my sister’s, mom’s, and aunt’s, were designed by Sasi from Sara, Anna Nagar. She did an amazing job and we discussed about every design over whatsapp. My wedding saree was golden red and to give a contrast look, we went for bottle green blouse with heavy design stone work.
Then my other saree was royal blue paired up with magenta blouse. Then I got my Sangeet lehenga from Diva, Chennai and Reception dress from @mokshaa#, Chennai. My husband’s vaesti and shirt were bought from Ramaraj, Sangeet Kurta from ManMandhir, and the Reception suit from Pn Rao, Chennai. My gold jewelries were bought from @malabar-gold-and-diamonds# in Dubai. And few other jewelries’ sets were rented from New ideas Fashion jewelry in Anna nagar and they have a wide range of collections. I wore white stone set for my first saree, and went traditional, all gold for my wedding red saree.
Both our sangeet makeup was done by Ramya and Hair by Karishma, and they both did a fabulous job. I looked like a princess and got overwhelming compliments. Then our Wedding and Reception makeup was done by RachelStylesmith, a celebrity makeup artist. She did a stunning job as well.
We went for our honeymoon to Kerala right after the wedding, and I recommend anyone planning a trip to Kerala to stay in the tree house in Rainforest resort, Athirapalli. It was serene and the tree house overlooks the falls. We also visited Dubai for three days on the way back to the US from India. We are planning to go to Hawaii and Europe sometime next year.