A Wedding With Grace And Smiles All Around!

The sweet and sophisticated bride says 'Smile though there may be disasters happening'. Seems to have worked perfectly well for her!! She looks the happiest of them all! The sweet Archana who made through her wedding with a gracious smile, giving us the insider's point of view.

This is Archana here. My wedding was on June 8. It feels like yesterday! Ours is an arranged marriage, with all the formal ponnu pathufying and stuff. (He came with his whole family, literally!) It was all finalized by the end of January and the D day was fixed for June, which left us only 4 months for the preparation.

Finding a Mandapam for Tam-Bram wedding in 4 months is like getting first day tickets to a Rajinikant movie and having the wedding in the most auspicious day of that month made things all the more difficult. After a lot of searching we did find SGR Mahal and booked it immediately. Lovely place, glad we found it!

The engagement happened on April 22 at E hotel (Express Avenue) Chennai. We were searching for a pure vegetarian hotel and happened to find it. The place and food was amazing. Now I am a regular at their restaurant.

We had only a month after the engagement for the wedding preparations and it has hectic. We started with saree shopping in Sundari Silks. It got one saree from there. Also, I wanted to check what the hype was about Kanchipuram.

Finally, we ended up getting 10 sarees in @a-s-babu-sah#. Amazing place!! Tip: Go on a weekday at 10 am. And for the blouse, I gave it to Sarada aunty who did my engagement blouses too. She did such a lovely job. Everyone was all praises for it.

Thanks to shopzters NAC contest which I participated in, I knew exactly what jewellery suited me best. So that job was easy. Some of the Jewellery, I used has been in the family for generations.

 As my husband Krishna is working in Dubai and is a big time foodie. We searched a lot and finalised JD catering. People were all praises for the food.

 Decoration: I wanted it to be different and so I decided on a peacock themed one. This was done by Mr. Shankar.

 Makeup: @make-up-ibrahim# and Shabaas for the wedding and reception, Aiswarya for the viradham. They all did a wonderful job. It was just perfect.

Photography: Who else but @aa-photography# - one thing my sister was keen from the first and I just love her for it. Ashok is just amazing..!! I still remember he said I will give you colourful pictures, Is it fine ..? Guess what! It turned out to be great.

Mehandi: Ayisha Mehandi designer. She is so patient and amazing.

Reception: I wanted a lehenga which was elegant. After a lot of searching, I got mine in Varsiddhi, T.Nagar.

Advise: 1. Won't advise you not to get tensed because you will anyways. I did!! Try having a person whom you know will oversee everything. It was my sister in my case. Love you Apu!

2. Even if disasters happen, Keep calm and smile. My reception decor was not even near what I asked for! My sister had to run home half an hour before Oonjal because we forgot the pal kinni at home.

3. You can't do everything in your wedding. Deligate a lot things to people, so your tension will reduce.

4. And finally refer shopzters when you have a query, it always helped me.

Have fun planning your wedding!!