Vidita and Harish's wedding in Kolkata, West Bengal

Our Real Wedding

Two individuals, a Bengali-Malyali girl from Kolkata and a Telugu boy from Andhra Pradesh, who left their hometowns to chase their dreams in the hustle bustle of Delhi NCR, fell in love with with each other’s uniqueness. What followed was the myriad challenges of unifying the two families and their cultures. More than four years of continuous hard work to bring the families together, finally came to fruition in Jan 2024, when we got married. It was a marriage of 2 cultures, traditions, their food and interests. Years of learning about our traditions made it easy for us to throw a multi cultural wedding,  inclusive of both the parties. The decoration paid homage to our roots- like the bengali wedding mandap with its "shola" and "jamdani" inspired installation, or the golden bells inspired by the temples of Andhra Pradesh. Ceremonies were a blend of both the cultures where the bengali bridal feast, known as "Aiburobhaat", was plated on a banana leaf with lotus petal adornments to add aesthetics from South India. The symbols of sun and moon worn by south indian brides traditionally also became the base of my kaliras for the bengali wedding. However, even as we incorporated traditions from both sides of the family, we did not loose our sense of self and personalities throughout the process. Be it, foregoing the rituals of Kanyaadan or choosing female priests to perform the ceremonies, we stuck to our principles as a couple as well. Customised pieces of clothing and accessories with our names and initials, or the self made e-vites that I carefully created, made us the elements of the wedding unique and special to us and our story. And, as I walked down the aisle and looked at him, we both had an overwhelming feeling that our love won. I hope our story reaches as many people as possible and acts a way for them to hold on to love.