Our wedding story revisited!

On the eve of our first marriage anniversary, I thought of the perfect way to relive our wedding day. By putting it in writing, I get to experience the entire wedding story once more and now that its in perspective... I don't even have to worry about all the things that could go wrong! Also, I never got a chance to upload any wedding photos so that is another thing I get to do now. So here is how the big day played out right from when we broke the news!

Breaking the big news: The very first obstacle to overcome was telling our parents that we wanted to get married. A love marriage and on top of it between a Garhwali and a Bengali wasn't going to be a piece of cake! While for my parents, it was more of a progression from dating to marriage... for Ashish's parents it was a great big shock as they were completely oblivious to my status as a girl friend. After being too scared to broach the subject for months, he finally decided to do it from California via the completely reliable medium of Skype. Reliable because you can disconnect the call whenever the conversation got too uncomfortable! For anyone faced with the same task, a glass or two of Johnny Walker's finest will also help. Anyway, having told them about his great achievement and having received sufficient accolades for it, we all finally agreed to have a meeting between our parents in Delhi. Point to be noted, Ashish was still safely basking in the California sun while the unenviable task of moderating this meeting fell on me.

One from our dating days in Hyderabad

Meet the parents: Finally the day arrived in the scorching month of April when armed with my father, uncle and aunt, my sister and brother-in-law I met my would be in-laws for the very first time. Lets just say I got an idea about diplomatic meetings between heads of countries.... all smiles on the surface while both parties try to put their points forth. Though there were times when the meeting almost went out of hand (which is quite common in any wedding related meeting in India), the best thing that came out of this day was our wedding date! We were getting married in approximately seven months and that was all that mattered.
P.S. Because it turns out I am really bad at moderating sticky conversations, I concentrated on the delicious paneer tikka. Yummy...

North meets East

Time flies: Even though our wedding was seven months away, it turns out that in wedding planning standard time (WPST), I was already running late! There were makeup artists to be looked at, a lehenga to be stitched, photographer to be chosen and the most important... kilos to be shed. Of course it did not help that over the span of the next seven months I traveled to around six cities (including overseas). Somehow, with a lot of help from my family, things started falling into place. I booked a makeup artist, my lehenga design was selected and was being made and my parents found a photographer who would travel to Delhi. The really crazy part was making wedding arrangements in Delhi while being in Kolkata but thankfully my uncle and aunt took it upon themselves to see this through!
The weight-loss wasn't going too well though, what with hectic work schedules and bachelorette parties. Ashish was breezing through it all, his only task was to select a sherwani a week before the wedding.

My lehenga being made...

Ghar wapsi (Homecoming): Finally, it was November and the wedding was only two weeks away. But most importantly, Ashish was coming to India and we would meet after almost a year! He had two days in Hyderabad before we went off to our respective cities and I came up with the crazy idea of a pre-wedding photoshoot. Fortunately I had a willing friend and talented photographer Saranya and together we dragged a jet-lagged Ashish to gardens and pool-sides hoping to capture some gorgeous photos. I still think Ashish was too zoned out to complain and we ended up with many memorable pictures.

One from our photo-shoot

The pre-wedding frivolities: Before the actual wedding, we Indians have a variety of rituals for every region. For us Bengalis, one of the most important ones is Aiburobhat... it is a rice-ceremony where the unmarried bride or groom is served a feast of mouth-smacking food. It is literally the last meal before marriage and it is impossible to finish!

Aiburobhat... note the awesome food

Then it was time to fly to Delhi with my family including a super-energetic trio of mom and two aunts. In Delhi, there was the much awaited Mehendi and another round of Aiburobhat (its cruel to have this much of delicious food served to you when you have to fit into a lehenga the day after). In the meantime, Ashish had finally completed his only task of choosing a sherwani after much hunting around.
And suddenly it was the night before our wedding. My friends would all be flying in the next morning and frankly, I couldn't wait! Which would be great except that a pimple was threatening to disrupt the festivities.

Mehendi hands

Rise and shine: The morning of our wedding arrived bright and clear (unlike me who had messy mehendi hands). In the meantime, one ritual had been done at around 4 A.M. which I had sleepwalked through. The next ceremony to complete was the Haldi ritual and by then some of my friends had arrived from Kolkata and it was a full house! After a round of turmeric-splashing on the terrace, it was almost lunchtime (except that I was too nervous to have lunch) and I had to start getting ready for the evening. Amidst all the chaos, I decided that the wedding hall decoration was not going well so there was a few minutes of panic and shouting before my younger sister took over the shouting part.

Haldi smeared...

Hair and makeup: One of the huge parts of getting married is the getting ready part. Everyone wants to look their best and I was no exception. I had booked a well-known artist Bobby Chopra after reading good reviews and I was all prepared to be pampered. Except that she never showed up. After being booked in July with an advance. Minutes turned into hours and all calmness descended into mad frenzy while we finally realized that any bride's worst nightmare was coming true. Our hotel room was a mess, my Didi was furious on the phone and I was ready to start crying (I even tried calling Ashish to ask him to start a bit late) until we managed to locate a beauty parlor who agreed to come and dress me up. Thankfully, they were able to get me ready before the groom arrived at the wedding hall (though it was the very last second). To this day I remember the rush to the wedding hall in excruciating detail.

Finally dressed and ready...

All is well: Finally I was at the hall and it was only a wait of few seconds before I heard the marriage party arrive amidst all the music and dancing and I was asked to go down and join Ashish on the stage. My friends were accompanying me and there were butterflies in my stomach but everything stilled when I saw Ashish on the stage. My friends tell me I literally ran to the stage but it was a moment I had only read about. All the music and noise calmed down, all the faces became a sea of glitter and flashes of camera phones and we couldn't stop smiling. In fact, we couldn't stop smiling till the wee hours of the morning!

All smiles...

Party all night: Okay, so it wasn't really a party that went on all night but it was our long wedding rituals. After posing for endless photographs and a failed attempt at having dinner, we sat down to our actual rituals which would go on all night. My friends and sisters took refuge with bottles of Sprite (okay so it was not just Sprite) while we patiently sat through the rituals. Though there are photos of me yawning, it was completely involuntary. At 6 A.M. in the morning, we were declared married (by the remarkably upbeat Panditji) and allowed to go home. The weary onlookers dragged themselves back to the hotel to catch a few hours of sleep while Ashish and I headed home for another hour or two of rituals. Phew... it would be a long day!

The main part of the wedding rituals

So that was all folks! This was all a year ago and if I haven't thanked all the people who helped/ participated in/ attended/ photographed our wedding... well this is finally when you get the thanks. Keeping all these happy memories in our heart (and in the blog), its time to move on with our lives... Thanks for reading!

Photo courtesy: Saranya Ravichander, Shreya Jain, Madhuparna Srivastava, Devarupa Sengupta Gupta and some random photographs