Got Hitched, Hooked and so very Married!

January the 9th came and went in such a blur that Mel & I are still periodically *ahem* pinching ourselves just to check our married status.

Emulating the centrepiece Shawn Lewis made us

Every one who attended the Pereira-Almeida wedding exclaimed over how smooth it went, how perfectly planned it seemed to be and how wonderful both the receptions turned out to be. Every time I hear exclamations like these, I mentally cross myself/touch wood/offer up an Hallelujah.

Why? Because a bride who has been planning her wedding a year in advance knows no respite from stress. Take it as a skewed ‘Confuscious Says’, but there’s the truth for you!

Take the nuptial mass for instance. It was to be a bilingual mass with a majority of the celebration in English and the rest in Marathi. Everything fell into place 20 minutes before I had to join Melroy at the church.

The last offering (a house of thermocol that we simply couldn’t obtain at the last minute) and the gospel readings and the people to do the various readings and the person to organize all of this (Val) were all minute decisions that had me nearly hyperventilating right until the offertory got over.

I even had Mel bemused by my slightly crazed expression during mass!

The nuptial mass went beautifully nonetheless and the choir exceeded my expectations, which is something.

Then came the wedding car fiasco. An open top jeepney was what Mel & I had decided for a wedding car. It was to arrive on the wedding morning all sparkling clean and polished black.

It arrived in the afternoon, all muddy and looking anything but impressive. The ever-dependable Rosalyn assisted by Gursimran and Joel managed to transform the backup car (a purple Honda Civic) into a gorgeous wedding car 10 minutes before Mel and I had to leave for the reception venue!

But I must stop with the nerve-wracking things that went on during those few days. Simply thinking about them is enough to make me break into a cold sweat.

What matters is our families were with us. What matters is friends who stood by us. What matters is the bonds that were strengthened. What matters is the love that enveloped both the wedding houses in a warm caccoon for those few days and thereafter.

What matters is Mel & I got hitched. Finally. With all our flaws and thorns and ups and downs and yucks nd aarrghs, marry we did. And how!

For all of you who made it for the wedding and made it a night to remember and savor forever, thank you!

For all of you who couldn’t make it for whatever reasons, we missed you tremendously!

For all of you who I missed inviting, I’m truly sorry and hopefully by the time the next big celebration comes our way, we shall be able to enjoy your company.

Thank you for being such fantastic friends!

Purple Feathers, Darling Nuns, Shopaholics & New Beginnings

Last Friday had me sleeping a bit late due to extreme excitement over my first shopping excursion for the wedding.

Something Special in Bandra is a DIY bride’s dream & maybe the groomsmen & the men from my bridal party’s nightmare. I shall reveal nothing more than two words – purple feathers.

Mom and I wrapped up with Something Special and I don’t know what compelled me, but I was pulled towards my school or more specifically the nuns who were so much a part of my childhood. I was unable to meet my old principal but as I was nervously jotting down a note to her, I met the terror of my boarding school days.

Said terror was the resident nurse and the choir mistress. If you were sick, you were huffed at for falling sick. If you were not sick, you were huffed at for causing general inconvenience. If you had a good voice, you had to attend interminable singing practices. If you couldn’t croak well, you were banished to the spare voices section.

Us girls would find ourselves in quite a pickle when in the presence of the terror.

So imagine my surprise when said terror gives me the biggest bear hug in mankind’s history and greets me like I’ve come home. It made me quite sappy to tell the truth.

Easter dresses beckoned me though and so I had to leave the good nuns for the nonce with promises to return soon for more reminiscing. Luck had it that I found the perfect dress in the first shop itself. I am so darn pleased with it, that I am planning on wearing it on the day my Second Banns are read in church.

The next day continued in very much the same vein. After a lot of waiting and coaxing I got to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic with three absolutely, divinely, stylish girls.

From frame one onwards, I was captivated. I forgot all about my cheese popcorn. I forgot about everything except a theatre full of beautiful women who let go of the world for an hour or two, the purple galoshes , coats, dresses, heels and purple everything, three women who loved to shop and always have a better-than-good time and Sophie Kinsella’s magical, funny story.

The adrenaline was gushing and I was incredibly high on a fabulous weekend spent with family, friends and cousins. So I ended the night with a thorough soaking in Temptations at Bandra and spread some Britney Spears ‘love’. On a side note, they really ought to chuck them old CDs out from the jukebox!

 

Aside and apart from everything else, this has been a fitting last week to an old year and an old life.

Sukaala to the new year! Gudi Padva abhinandan.

My Palette of Purple

As many of you know, the colors I’ve chosen for my wedding are:

Rich Cream
Pale Gold
Goth Purple

This unusual combination is very difficult to put together on many counts, mainly because people simply don’t go for anything darker than a freaky shade of wine when it comes to dark purple.

However, I live in hope and hope to find my perfect match (color i.e.) very soon.