Anisha Srinivasan and Nitin Sood – Goa, India
Nitin is a Tamil speaking Punjabi, and grew up in Chennai and Bangalore. Anisha is from Bangalore, she moved to the US for higher studies, after working there for five years she returned to Bangalore, which is when she met Nitin. Here, the couple tell us more about their destination wedding at Alila Diwa, the wedding hot-spot in South Goa.
Nitin, a Tamil speaking Punjabi, grew up in Chennai and Bangalore. After graduating from McGill University, Montreal, he moved back to India where he works with Barclays Bank. Anisha is from Bangalore, she moved to the US for higher studies, after working there for five years she returned to Bangalore, which is when she met Nitin. Says Anisha: “We both knew each other socially, but not very well. But we ended up meeting often, bumping into each other at weddings, common friends’ homes, parties and gradually we just ‘clicked'”. Adds Nitin “Our story is quite straight forward, and a relationship that was destined to be”.
They tell us more about their destination wedding at Alila Diwa, the wedding hot-spot in South Goa.
Wedding Venue
“In the beginning Goa wasn’t on our radar. Both our families are from Bangalore, and we exhausted all possible options for various reasons. There were six conflicting opinions until one day someone said, ‘How about Goa?’ So we short-listed Zuri resort and Alila Diwa, and these were the only two venues we visited. We loved Alila from the minute we stepped in there. So we didn’t even consider checking out more properties in Goa.
Wedding Functions
Our wedding celebrations commenced with an outdoor Mehndi function in the afternoon, which was more about everyone getting to know each other as many of our guests just flew in that afternoon. It was a very relaxed party, with guests in Hawaiian shirts and bermudas and drinks & lunch in the open lawns.
Our Sangeet took place later in the evening. The theme was ‘Kollywood meets Bollywood’, and everyone thought it was quite an interesting theme. Anisha’s family were dressed in South Indian attire, while the Punjabi mundas & kudis were clad in their kurtis & jootis.
The following day, our wedding ceremony was held as per Tamil Iyengar traditions with some elements of Punjabi celebrations. The groom arrived in a vintage car, with an overly ecstatic baraat while the bride adorned herself in a beautiful Kanjeevaram saree and temple jewellery. There were dhol wallas (Punjabi style) & nadaswaram players (South Indian style). Our decor was simple because the hotel itself is very beautiful so we did not feel it necessary to accessorize it much. The only flowers used were yellow and orange marigolds, which complimented the venue nicely.
Our wedding was a good mix of fun and tradition because everyone had a great time and yet we did not compromise on traditions or rituals. It was held in May-end when it rains in Goa but we were lucky with the weather and we celebrated some functions outdoors as planned, though we had back-up plans in case of rains.
We had a great time planning and executing our two-day celebrations. The only stressful part we felt was preparing the guest lists and managing the room allocations bit.
Recommendations
Our Goa wedding vendor, Narendra Thali, was amazing! He’s quick, responsive, reasonable and had everything we were looking for. He has seen different weddings in Goa, from intimate & fusion to big & traditional, so he knows exactly what to recommend to different clients. We were very happy with our Candid Photographer Prateek Sharma too. We happened to visit his website, we liked his work and gave him the job of photographing our big day.”
Photos courtesy- Prateek Sharma
