Chennaites Ram and Divya met through facebook, fell in love and got married! Sounds too good to be true? This story is unlike anything you have ever read before. Here Ram narrates his version of this exciting love story.
The month of June will always be special to me. It’s probably my favourite month of the year! I feel blessed to be with Divya. It feels like I’m the luckiest soul on the planet! Sounds too filmy? Too cheesy? Well, that’s exactly how it was. How it is now. A fast tracked love story that hit me like a bolt of thunder and took my heart away! We were both really young. But as they say, age is just a number. Besides, nothing can stop two people from falling in love. We met through facebook. Yes its cliché. I met this girl online through a mutual friend. We began chatting and the rest is history.
One fine day I asked out of the blue "Kalyaanam pannikkalaama?”. She was convinced of her love for me but several thoughts clouded her mind. Were they too young to get hitched? She responded with silence. The next day she spoke to her parents and I spoke to mine. Soon our parents got together at a Saravana Bhavan to speak about this proposal we put forward! My dear friend Vadapalani Murugan did the honours of helping put the plans in place.
Preparations for the wedding began almost immediately. Our families exchanged details of jaadhagams, gothrams, stars etc. The more our families got to know each other, the more acquaintances we had. Her mom’s younger sister was my mother’s ex colleague. Even the astrologer we went to knew both our families before! Everything happened so quickly that all we had to do was to be back and watch the miracle play before us.
Even our best friends were kept in the dark about what was happening between us. Including the one that introduced her to me! Soon after the engagement, dates for our wedding were fixed. We had just about 6 months to plan. Shopzters helped us with selecting most of our vendors. Divya read every single blog to see the latest trends, top vendors and what not? And then, we started with our super long to-do list. Ours was a very traditional wedding starting from Viratham to Nalungu.
We started off with booking the mandapam, caterer and photographer as we knew exactly what we wanted. When it came to wedding planning, do make sure to book mandapam, caterer, photographer & make-up artist as soon as possible since their dates are almost always full on muhurtam days.
Divya will take over the story from here
Wedding Hall – L Balasubramanian Hall AIOBEU Swasthika, Mylapore
My dad worked for IOB and this wedding hall is owned by them. Based on his suggestions, we felt this hall would be perfect for our wedding.
Photographers & Videographers – Ashok Arsh of @aa-photography#
We both knew Ashok very well before for years together and we wanted only his lens to capture our wedding moments. We always loved Ashok’s style and rendering. Ashok’s pictures are always brilliant, colourful and eye-catching. A big hug to Ashok and his team, they were brilliant! Entire shoot was a big hit. The entire team was with us on all the days waking up before we did and going back to bed after we did. A very patient, flexible and hardworking team. Not only did Ashok capture all the lovely moments, he helped us with excellent recommendations for rest of our wedding planning. All our friends & family were super impressed with his work and I am sure he is super busy now. ;) It was fun working with his entire team!
Caterers - Srinivasa Catering services (Nanganallur)
Catering was completely taken care by my parents. Mouth-watering, delicious and authentic Tam-Brahm food for both the wedding days. Absolutely brilliant food as quoted by everyone who came to the wedding. Not only food, but they also helped us with all the other arrangements needed for the wedding events.
Wedding Hall Decoration - Divya, @red-thread-events#
Divya is such a darling. She did an amazing job. She took that extra effort to understand what exactly we wanted and made sure it’s perfect until the end.
Makeup Artist - Shiela Arvind, Kohls and Blushes Makeup
My last minute saviour!! My already booked makeup artist was down with dengue; hence Shiela did my makeover for both the days. She did a very natural and flawless make up for all the occasions. She was extremely professional and punctual for all the events that made it so much easier for me to get ready on time. She did an amazing hair-do, be it traditional or trendy. I got a lot of compliments for both my hair and makeup.
Mehendi Artist- Yashwanthy, Mehndi Maniac
She is such a sweetheart. First of all she was Ram's friend; we didn’t have a second thought regarding my mehendhi artist! ;) She did a very intricate design for both my legs and hands. It was just perfect with a beautiful peacock design.
Invitations - Ramya from @kards#
We wanted a custom made invitation and we approached Ramya with our design ideas. It includes a lot of characters depicting various events happened since our Facebook connection. She did a fabulous job with the design. Shopzters helped me find Ramya :)
DJ - Jayakanth from Liviya Audio
But the most crucial time was the last one month before our wedding. We took a long 4 weeks off to get all my sarees, jewellery, blouses and all of Ram’s shopping.
Sarees:
I didn’t want to miss any shop and so we almost went to every shop in Chennai to get exactly what I wanted. Of all the shops we went to, I would rate Nalli, Kanakavalli, RMKV the best. I loved their collections and the quality of silk.
For Mehendi, I wore a blue with lemon colour lehenga from Rupam, Sowcarpet.
Reception - I wore Sea green and Pink lehenga from Varsiddhi. A must visit for some awesome lehengha collections.
Viratham (Pista green & Brown) - @varamahalakshmi-silks#, Mylapore
Engagement - Onion colour - Shreenivasa silks, T.Nagar, Yellow- Blue - Nalli 100
Oonjal Saree - Tomato Pink - RMKV, T.Nagar
Muhurtam 9 yards - Kumaran Silks, Mylapore
Mom’s Sarees - Srinivasa Silks and Nalli 100
Jewellery- Since we would hardly reuse any of the imitation jewellery, I went ahead with renting most of them.
GRT T.Nagar - Gold & Diamond jewellery.
Blouses - Nithya Baburao - Arudhra (Choolaimedu)
It would take minimum of 20 days for the designers to get the blouses done.
So, I gave my blouses to Mrs. Nithya a month before. She did a brilliant job. I loved her work on all my blouses. Got a lot of compliments for the designs.
Ram’s Wardrobe
It’s always easy when it comes to the guys. We finished his shopping in 2 days. We bought Ram's reception suite from Louis Phillippe, Nungambakkam. Planning & Shopping was a lot of fun but very exhausting too. To the new bride-to-be’s out there, do not get tensed, be relaxed, everything will fall into place. Do not plan things till the last minute, finish all planning a month before and enjoy your time with family. Make everything simple and you are going to shine like star on your D-day!!!
I didn’t quite realize that, I was getting married until I went into my room to change to my 9 yards saree. Thank you Shopzters for giving me an opportunity to share my experience. Watch out for this blog as it really helps for the soon to be brides on anything and everything you need :)
