Netra Srikanth and Raghava
Netra, a western-classicial violist married Raghava a contemporary artist. New York based Netra spoke to Sakshi Singh.

I had a traditional Iyer-Iyengar style wedding in Bangalore. The saris for the Vratham (pre-wedding puja), Janavasam (pre-wedding procession), and Muhurtam (wedding ceremony) were all specially woven for my wedding. My mother-in-law and her sister gave the mill the gold to be woven into and embroidered into the saris, and they chose the patterns. It took several months for these saris to get ready—but it was worth the wait and effort, because the sarees were stunningly beautiful. My mother-in-law sourced antique jewelry from her own collection and from friends, and my traditional look was created with antique jewels and temple jewelry.

A good friend, Nayana Billings, who used to run Squeeze Salon in Bangalore and who now lives in the UK, did my hair and makeup. I wore an unconventional purple Kanjeevaram saree and gold blouse for the Janavasam (pre-wedding procession)—this I teamed with purple and gold bangles. The function had a lot of fireworks so Raghava wore a dress with fireworks posters—it was put together by our old friend, Bangalore fashion-guru Prasad Bidappa. The jacket was created by the internationally well known Indo-French design team Hemant Lacoanet--it featured posters of firecrackers from Sivakaasi, India’s city of firecrackers. For the wedding function I wore a mustard-orange kanjeevaram while Raghava wore a very simple, traditional South Indian veshti.

For my post-wedding party, I wore a simple pink dress designed by two of my best friends, Raj Shroff and Neetu Gupta. My reception dress was created by my designer friend, Rehane who is based in Chennai. It was a long shiny gold dress, completely covered in beads, with a long flowing train. I visited Rehane four times because the dress had to be an exact fit. We had to tighten it up on the day of the party because just before the wedding I had a stomach infection and had lost a bit of weight. :-) For the reception, I wore a very simple necklace from my mother-in-law's collection because the dress itself was so bright and shiny!

Raghava's outfit for the reception was also designed by Rehane. It was an Indo-western oufit with a sleeveless embroidered jacket and trousers.