Prerana n Gautam's Fairy Tale - Best Candid Wedding Photographer

While this blog might seem a little long on the first look, it is actually very beautiful and one of my favorites. You can experience Prerana and Gautam’s love story right from Law school. The brides-to-be who are reading this will find some useful tips and pitfalls that they need to watch out for.

Here is Prerana’s candid Love story in her own beautiful words:

The LAW (Love) Story
“Hi Guys,

First of all, I would like to thank Anand and the team of Third Eye Photography for covering our wedding functions so beautifully and giving me an opportunity to share Gautam and my story. 🙂

Gautam and I studied together in the same batch for five years in a law school. We happened to get introduced through a common friend towards the end of the first semester. As usual we slowly became Facebook friends, exchanged numbers and he came to my aid when I was refused a hall ticket due to attendance issues and when I was running around completing the formalities.

In just a couple of months, both of us realised that we weren’t just friends, and before we knew it, hanging out for lunch or movies turned to dinner dates and movie nights. The transition was so easy that I don’t think either of us is fully sure about when we started having feelings for each other. Over the years, our bond only became stronger and with each passing day, we became more aware that this relationship would either turn into a fairy tale story for the rest of our lives or suffer a tumultuous end if it didn’t work out in the end because we were both too deeply invested in each other by then.

In between we were doubtful if this inter community marriage, if and when it happens would be accepted by both families. He is a Malayali and I, a Gujarati, raised in Karnataka. But, we decided to deal with it as it comes. Suddenly, two years after graduation his parents, who were ever so doubtful about our ‘just friends’ status found out with the help of his sister that we were indeed together, and after a lot of coaxing and threatening me about arranged marriage, my father finally got me to admit about Gautam and me, something that my mother was ready to guarantee on a bond paper to my father even before I admitted it. Gautam was always my mother’s favourite.

I finally admitted after months of built up pressure from my father, because only a few days before this day, I had got a call from Gautam’s mother to meet her for lunch, and we had a very successful and happy first meeting. So, after that I gathered the courage to let my parents know too.

From then on, as expected, things escalated very quickly, mainly after Gautam’s family astrologer was of the opinion that we must get married before April 2018 or only sometime in 2020. My parents were definitely not going to wait that long, and both Gautam and I didn’t see a point in delaying it any further. And thus, the roller coaster ride of ‘getting married’ began.

Planning the Wedding

Gautam and I decided every tiny little detail about our wedding and worked very hard for those 6 months. Both of us wanted an open air wedding ceremony and Templetree Leisure was the perfect harmony between ethnic tradition and modern architecture. Naturally, Templetree Leisure was decided as the venue, of course only after my parents inspected the place and were bowled over by not just the place but also by its charming and lovely owner, Mrs.Joseph.

Next came the rather hard part of finalising the wedding planner, we must have got over half a dozen of wedding planners to meet my parents. I would like to warn the ones preparing for their weddings to strictly avoid the wedding planners who do not have their own production house, you would be paying more commission than for quality of work. I learnt this the hard way when we were almost going to finalise a family wedding planner, when I came across other planners on WedMeGood with much better experience, ideas and enthusiasm and price effective quotations.

After the tedious task of meeting the planners and explaining all our requirements to each one of them, I finally spoke to Sarang of Aira Wedding Planners as the last planner I would ever talk to before my wedding and bam! I am so happy I decided to give him a call, he was a ball of enthusiasm and ideas, he understood our specific, rather picky requirements quite well and understood our décor ideas for each event and the hospitality and logistic requirements considering we had over 80 rooms booked for the weekend, with guests coming from different cities. (Their comfort was one of the most important requirements of my father, and we needed a planner who understood these concerns). Sarang was our man through and through and over the course of multiple meetings that continued till the night before the wedding, we had everything figured out.

We had numerous long meetings both over the phone and face to face to go over the décor for all the wedding functions. The décor part was something that I was given responsibility of, as my family realized that I was very sure of what I wanted. I told Sarang that I wanted an entirely yellow and orange themed Haldi with some quirky décor. I asked him to keep it simple considering it was a family affair, but if you see the photos, he not only brought my vision to life with utmost perfection but made it look as grand as it could get.

For the reception, I wanted a candle theme décor, with a backdrop that both Gautam and I had our hearts set on, it was a combination of flowers and candle. Sarang showed me those beautiful candle stands that could be used for the reception and I was totally impressed. My father did not want the use of candles to make the entire set up look dim, so Sarang used a mix of candles and focus lights to make the décor look both bright, without drubbing the shadowy brilliance of the candles. Honestly, when all of us entered the venue for the reception, it was a pleasant surprise for even someone like me who had gone over every little detail repeatedly since the last few months, as I did not expect the execution to be as spectacular as it was. My father was stunned, as he had too many expectations, that he was worried I wouldn’t meet, let alone exceed 😉

For the wedding, I wanted a colorful, traditional décor with mainly pink, orange and cream combo. I wanted the use of colorful umbrellas and the peculiar Rajasthani hangings, and as expected, the wedding set up was as colorful as it could get. Sarang, also surprised us with a creative two states ‘Welcome Board’ for us, which became a total hit among all the guests as well. We absolutely loved it.

Anand, our photographer was referred to us by one of the wedding Planners we had spoken to and we were so happy to see his work on WedMeGood, that we took their suggestion seriously and gave him a call. His passion for what he does, spills through the phone the moment you speak to him. I knew he was our photographer, the very first time I called him. Gautam and I met him once after that and we luckily had him on board, the very same day. He is very easy to work with, one of those people who spreads his positive energy to everyone around and so diligent towards his work. Working with him was a breeze and he did an amazing job out of whatever time he got, considering we had back to back functions with literally no time to dedicate time for a proper photo session. He deserves an apology for that. I didn’t think it would be as packed as it was.

WedMeGood came to my rescue not only with regards to our wedding planner but also my make up artist. I had trials with two make up artists before I finalised one of them. Here, I cannot stress the importance of keeping some time to go for trial session with more than one make up artist, because I know we tend to get busy with a whole lot of other things and we finalise an artist right after the first trial session. However, though you may like your first trial session, you will never know the difference between the works of two make up artists, until they both run their brushes on you.

I was very particular that I would have minimal make up on, and looked as close to my natural self as I could. While, the first make up trial I had was just the opposite of what I wanted, the second one that I had with Pragna was exactly as I had requested. The trial gave me so much more confidence about my big day. It is so much better than having to uncover the horror on the wedding day. Trust me, you don’t want to regret the fact that you didn’t make some time for more trials.

Well, I guess all is well that starts well, because after all those months of toiling, Gautam and I had a ball of a time at our wedding functions and I wish we could relive those moments again and again.”