Imagine waking up to a life that lifts you up and transports you to a different world. Perfect with its happy endings, sworn vows and the promises of forever. This is our world. The world of Roopak & Vidhya!
It started like any other long-distance, matrimony match, where we were introduced by family members through phone. But, later came the frenzy part!
Roopak was a UK based IT Consultant, while I was in Chennai, happily managing my start-up Architecture firm. After we spent days of talking over the phone and crossing levels of understanding, our parents came up with the most terrifying word in any marriage right from the olden days - “Horoscope”. Much to our horror, our parents, wanted to drop the proposal due to the “not so matching horoscopes”. Little did they know that we were already struck by Cupid’s bow! Then came all the cries and emotional blackmails from the two of us, to not call this off by any means. Meanwhile, through all the emotional stress, we decided to finally meet, come what may.
Roopak flew in to India. I decided to meet him in his hometown, Trivandrum. With the help of my darling cousins, we met for the first time! All through, both of us knew that this was going to be, forever! We knew it even better when our inner instinct kept saying it all the time, from the moment we first spoke over phone. By the end of two days in Trivandrum, five days in Bangalore and two days in Chennai in a span of his one month visit to India all the magic was taking shape. After months of convincing, our parents finally gave in and decided our big day!
The Wedding was to be held in Trivandrum, Beach house party & Reception in Chennai. All we had was four months to plan. Roopak in the UK, and me in Chennai made things all the more difficult for us. Being a designer, I was certain that I could design the wedding cards, wedding attires and décor all by myself.
To begin with, the wedding cards were designed from scratch. I started with the paper selection in the sprawling handmade paper warehouses in Parrys corner, Chennai. I then designed the invites in Adobe Photoshop, handmade the cards to suit our needs and finally found a screen printer – Ultimate Print process in Triplicane, who could execute my ideas professionally. The end result was two stunning handmade wedding invites to our taste.
I decided to keep my wedding saree a simple magenta pink bought from @nalli-silks#, T.Nagar. The other yellow and hot pink saree was from @varamahalakshmi-silks#, Luz. My “mundu neriyadhu” (Kerala Kasavu Saree) was bought from East Fort, Trivandrum.
My wedding blouses were again designed by me and executed by Sathya Tailors in T.Nagar. They were extremely patient with my individual sketches for all blouses for the wedding and pre-wedding dress. I had specifications for my mother’s and sister’s blouses as well. They took a long 70 days to get everything done, but all of us loved each blouse.
Make-up and hairstyle was done by Binzu Gopalan from Beau Monde, Trivandrum.
The wedding backdrop was designed by me and executed by Mr. Sandeep from Royal Events, Trivandrum. Every bit of our name board, garlands, ring tray and entrance Ganesha were executed meticulously by him. He patiently listened to all our needs and took that as a challenge.
The pre-wedding function and the wedding took place as per our plans and a week later all of us were back in Chennai for the Beach house party & Reception. The beach house party was full of fun. Cousins and close friends from both sides enjoyed the music and long pool hours. Food for both days in the beach house was amazing. Thanks to Ms. Gayathri from Enkay’s, Chennai.
The reception that took place at Hotel Savera, R.K. Salai was more of a DJ-Dance night for us with choreographed dances from both families. There were dances from family members, choreographed by Joe at Dwarion’s dance crew, Chennai. We had an amazing DJ, arranged by our event manager, Ms. Sowmy and her husband Mr.Gopi from Kriyative Mindz, Chennai. The props were all handmade exclusively for my reception by the Intern students at my Architecture firm.
My pastel shade with royal blue Lehenga was designed and customized from @kay-the-fashion-bay#, Chennai and my husband’s Bandghala suit was tailor-made from @mokshaa#, Chennai.
My make-up and hairdo was done by none other than the best stylist in town, Ms. Viji at @bronzer-bridal-makeup-artist#. There’s no second to her when it comes to bridal makeup. My husband’s styling was done by Viji’s husband, Mr. Naveen. The husband-wife stylist duo were simply fabulous! They were both flawless and almost everyone mentioned that our makeup was perfect for the evening.
And…, if we were to thank the photographers for all our events – @magic-motion-media#, Ernakulam, our words of thanks would be a thousand lines long. They were part of our planning right from the beginning and they are the ones who continue to make our memories alive by capturing all those beautiful days of our life.
All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our families and friends who stood by us throughout.
