happily ever after

Over the weekend, we celebrated our wedding anniversary and Anant’s birthday. We even managed to squeeze in a short visit to the place where we got married. It is really hard to believe, that the whole year has passed already. I guess it’s because we put so much time and energy into organizing, decorating and DIY-ing the whole thing.

As we didn’t want the typical Indian affair with the stage, videographer and million people we’ve never seen before, we had to put a lot of effort into making it happen our way. If you have to rely on people who have certain vision of how the wedding should look like, it’s often easier to just get to work and do things yourself.

And so we did. After many frustrating shopping trips, I made both of my dresses and some of the accessories. We designed our own invitations, wedding website and even phone app, which turned out to be a great decision, since the invitation delivery was totally messed up.

Though we hired the decorator, he was mainly responsible for the lighting, sound and some power generators, while the family helped us out with creating photo booths and wedding gazebo. I even had my friends to do my mehendi and hair, while I took care of the makeup. I know that some girls like to be pampered one The Day, but getting ready with your friends really takes the pressure off. Plus I’ve seen enough drag queen bridal makeups to get myself into that pickle.

One thing I’ve learned, was that all the wedding planning tools you can find online really help. Our wedding wasn’t, perhaps, the most organized one, but we managed to do everything we planned, including the vodka-spiked coconuts and Chinese lanterns.

After going through the whole process, I would probably do few things differently, or avoid one or two nerve wrecking situations, but on the whole, I think we made our dream wedding happen.