The Blushing Bride: Malavika Chakrabarty

Cousins are usually the first friends we have as children; best of two worlds, they are family and friends at the same time. And thus seeing your childhood friend all decked up as a bride is definitely a very emotional moment. Seeing her in her wedding lehenga, smiling next to the groom, all of a sudden, it dawned on me, “She is leaving India forever and I won’t see her anymore whenever I want.”  Yes, it was so hard to believe that she was getting married, but preparing for the D-day was even harder. We had only three months to plan and execute everything. She had a Punjabi-Bengali fusion wedding and it was a day that everybody was looking forward to.

So let us see what she chose and how she looked on this very special day of her life.

1. How did you guys meet?
“ I was on my cultural exchange scholarship to China for 1 year after post-graduation. Luckily, his place was close to my friend's place where I was putting up for a night and then I received his Wechat friend request (he added me by finding nearby people, LOL). And for a long time we didn't meet, just used to chat on Wechat. After 3 months we met just for a casual dinner and on my birthday he proposed directly for marriage with an engagement ring.”

2. So how long did you get to plan your entire wedding?
“Since he is a Chinese, our marriage was supposed to be a very complicated affair because of the registration process and communication barrier between our parents. We decided to register our marriage in China since it is a lot hassle-free here. After the marriage registration, my parents started to arrange for the December wedding ceremony in India while I was working in China. So, almost all of the preparation was done by my parents. It took around 3 months for the entire preparation. We didn't have a separate reception since our wedding was a wedding-cum-reception affair mixed with Punjabi and Bengali rituals (my mummy is a Punjabi and my papa is a Bengali). The night before wedding we had the Mehendi & Sangeet ceremony which was quite fun. The morning of the wedding had a simple haldi ritual followed by lunch. After the December Indian Wedding, we also had a March Chinese wedding in his ancestral home. Everything was in such a hurry, i barely got any time to arrange my wedding properly.”

3. Tell us something about where you got your outfits and accessories, both wedding and reception?
“For the wedding, my mummy wanted me to wear a lehenga badly so I made her wish come true. The lehenga was quite a simple red-beige lehenga with minimal work on it. I got it from a Rupahali in Park street  and I got the choli stitched from a boutique nearby my home. I didn't want to go for heavy accessories and wanted to put minimal jewelry on my D-day. So I started to search for costume jewelry and my cousin-sister helped me through it. I got a red kundan jewelry set from a shop in New market. The chooda and other bangles, waistband, hair pins, hair brooch was bought from a shopping complex near Bada bazar. The wedding heels were bought from Catwalk online store from China and the wedding purse was also bought online. The Gold jewelry was pre-arranged by mummy from Tanishq.”

4. Where did you get your makeup and hair done?
“I got my makeup and hair done by Anirudhha Chakladar. He's just absolutely amazing and a true expert. I loved his minimal and natural bridal makeup.”

5. Tell us something about your photographer?
 “Ahh!!! what to say about my photographer!!! He took such good pictures just on a 5 hour period. He's none other than Rig Biswas of Rig Photography.”
Visit his FB page Here

6. Any advice you want to all the readers out there?
“ For the wedding, I would like to say everyone should have sufficient time to prepare for their wedding since its once in a lifetime affair. Earlier I had imagined so much how to prepare but when it was my turn it was such a hurry I hardly prepared anything in advance. I didn't lose weight to look slimmer and I couldn't take good care of the skin and there were pimples bursting on my cheeks during the wedding. But being the bride thrice for the same man was exciting and super fun enough, so even though i couldn't have my ideal wedding yet i enjoyed it and would cherish it all my life.”

DeckandDine says:-
 It was wonderful growing up with someone like her - someone to lean on, someone to count on. She made one of the prettiest brides I have ever seen. You don’t really need any makeup, when you have such a million dollar smile. I loved how beautiful my baby looked in the bridal wear.
All of a sudden, I realized I'm all grown up, because she got married. :P

My very best wishes and deepest love to you two,
I am so thankful to you have a sister like you.
Love you two..
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If you too want to feature your wedding tale with us, then mail us at madhu.9615@gmail.com