Okay I admit, we have been guilty of giving North Indian weddings their fair share of coverage and lehenga love, and neglecting the rest of India but we ALWAYS love to take a peek into other weddings, specially when they are like this fun Maharashtrian wedding with the typical Mumbai laid back vibe. This shows us that the recipe for the perfect wedding only involves 4 steps- a bride with a super infectious laugh, the rooftop of your apartment with a killer view, a genius caterer best friend (Thai Golgappas..GIMME) and an ink blue gown that you can twirl in! (Oh and 4 photographers. Yes. 4!!!)
Meet Shivani & Advait
She is happy, outgoing and experimental . (And also seems like one of those girls you can instantly be friends with doesnt she?!) He is rational, calm and witty. Together they are one, power packed combination. Advait says, this was an arranged marriage arranged by himself ! You see, he spotted Shivanis profile online on a website, got in touch with her dad and a few emails later texted her. Shivani says "Subsequently when we spoke, it felt so easy and natural that we ended up talking for about half an hour. We met the next day and we both knew that this was it. I never really believed that theory of '
when you know, you know' but this just felt completely right. And four months later we got married in Mumbai. People who know the both of us never thought that either of us would have an arranged marriage, we just didn't seem 'that' kind. We followed all the rules of the process, keeping our parents in the loop, but also did things our way. I tell a lot of my friends that in our crazy lives, this is just another way of meeting someone new. In fact, the number of people we have in common, Advait and I could have just as easily met amongst common friends, but it took a website, our parents, and (a lot) of initiative from his end to actually make it happen"
The Cocktail
Love that Ink Blue Gown
The Mehendi
The wedding
Reception
Shivani, we love this chilled out, fuss-free vibe in your wedding. Tell us more
We had a Mehendi, cocktail, wedding and reception. The Mehendi Party was held on the terrace of the building where I grew up! It was a beautiful venue that overlooks the Mumbai sea link. In the middle of the party the music unfortunately died but my mom and mom in law's friends brought out a dholak and continued the party unabashedly singing Marathi & Punjabi wedding songs! This was followed by Cocktail at the Sofitel, Wedding and Reception.
I asked my closest friend Bhakti Mehta of
The Little Food Company to cater for the event. This was tricky, since building rules were also pretty strict on what kind of equipment we could use, Bhakti had to design a special menu to suit the space. The food was an incredible hit! She created a menu with some of her signature dishes like Thai pani puri, and Mexican tarts and even put in a live crepe station! We also had a specially designed mehendi cake from 'The cake studio' by Home chef.
For the rest of the events, the venues took care of most of the stuff, but it was just what we wanted. The decor at each event was simple, non fussy and classy! Special mention to the guys at Sofitel who treated us like royalty on our cocktail! We had actually booked another place but after receiving some seriously horrendous reviews, we decided to try out the new Sofitel. It is a cool artsy place and we fell in love with the Ballroom. The Blue Sea is a great wedding venue with outstanding food.
While I drool over those gol gappas, tell us about your outfits...
I looked at a lot of blogs and website for outfit inspiration. Unfortunately,
I realised that there were very very few contemporary Maharashtrian brides whose weddings had been documented. My idea was to stick to all the traditional colours and fabrics but to make the outfits look contemporary. I also had just about 2.5 months to plan everything and given that I was working it was quite a task to find everything. I ended up literally going to every shop in Bombay 2-3 times till I figured out which designers I really loved. So as it turns out all 4 outfits came from different designers!
The idea for the cocktail was to have a western silhouette but with a strong Indian element. I spotted this Anita dongre gown on another website but when I went to the store they didn't have it.. I was a little nervous ordering it, not having seen it in person but the colour and the fit turned out exactly the way I wanted it.. And the zardozi panels added the Indian feel
The mehendi outfit was the first I actually fell in love with.. The rust lehenga was really light so I could dance around and the embroidery actually looked like mehendi! People thought id custom made it but this was a ready price at tarun tahiliani
My wedding saree had to be yellow and that was a huge task.. To find the right yellow.. !We picked up a traditional paithani from ratanshi kheraj after a lot of hunting and for the second saree, picked up a traditional red kanjivaram from Nalli
I knew I wanted to wear a saree for the reception as opposed to a lehenga because I felt in the long run it's just more wearable.. I think we went to the sabyasachi store about 4 times before i found this one and fell in love with the colour. To make it look a little heavier, we used a brocade petticoat below the net saree which showed through and together the whole look became much richer.
You hired one of our Recommended Vendors Fatima, for makeup. Deets Please !
Yup I hired Fatima Soomar after I found out about her through your blog and she was fantastic !! :)
[handbook]
Fatima Soomar Bridal Makeup is part of the
WMG Handbook. This means she has been recognised by us as someone who is great at what she does. Once we go live for catering - you can bet The Little Food Co will be on that list as well!
[vendor]
Vendor details: Venues: Mehendi on Brides Apartment Rooftop, Cocktail at Sofitel Mumbai, Wedding at Blue Sea, Reception at The Club, Juhu | Makeup:Fatima Soomar for all events
| Photographer : Anupa Shah, Wedding Crashers, Joy Manavath, Ajit Rane| Outfits: Blue gown by Anita Dongre, Peach sari by Sabyasachi, Traditional sareea by Retanshree Kheraj & Nalli , Mehendi Lehenga by Tarun Tahiliani| Catering: The Little Food Co |
