The coronavirus restrictions that shattered many plans this year, didn't spare one young Melbourne couple's year-long dream of starting their life journey together by getting married in Phuket in Thailand.
Instead, Shreya Nair and Vamshi Koiikandadai turned to technology.
“It was my daughter’s wish to hold the wedding in Phuket. So, we arranged everything and invited relatives and friends and even booked tickets for them. However, the coronavirus travel restrictions didn’t permit us to conduct it as we wished,” the bride's father Sasidharan Nair told SBS Malayalam.
“We wanted it to be held in the presence of our close relatives. It was sad that it didn’t work out as we planned. But we did it in a very different way on the same day and same time (Muhoortham) as fixed earlier. In that way we are happy.”
Instead, they had to constrain it to a closed room where only 10 people could attend as per Victoria's coronavirus restrictions - turning a room into a wedding venue with the curtains as backdrops and colourful flowers and decorations.
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Shreya and Vamshi started their new life with the blessings of around 150 people from around the world who logged in on Zoom to watch the ceremony live.
The couple who got engaged a year ago was longing to commence their life together on May 24th this year surrounded by their loved ones in Phuket in Thailand.
As they were determined to tie the knot on the prefixed date and time itself, the couple decided to arrange it via a zoom app, paving the way for hundreds of relatives and friends to attend the ceremony live.
It was a bit stressful when we couldn’t do as planned. But we know if it didn’t happen now, we will have to wait at least a year for us to start our life together. So, we put forward the idea of zoom wedding.
“My parents were not fully convinced at first because Vamshi’s father and brother who are in India and New Zealand respectively cannot attend. They all were supposed to fly to Phuket. It took a bit of time to convince them and now they are very happy as all relatives and friends could attend it live.”
The wedding was held at their parents’ house in Blackburn. It was arranged as a full-fledged traditional Kerala Hindu marriage following all the religious practices.
“It was a proper Hindi traditional marriage. We followed all the rituals - from welcoming the groom, to tie the knot, to handing over the bride (Kanyadaanam). The main components that contribute to the ceremony like lamps etc were arranged from friends. The traditional drum beats and music were recorded and played in the background giving the ambience of a standard traditional Hindu marriage.
"I followed the instructions of rituals from my dad’s brother who attended the wedding from India. Everything went as usual making it unique," added Sasidharan Nair.
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"Sreya is my only daughter. We did everything for her happiness and we are satisfied now that the wedding happened on the same day and time and that they could start their life."
Vamshi’s father who was away in India was not able to attend his elder son’s wedding. The restrictions forced him to attend and shower blessings online.
'A bit sceptical'
“I was a bit sceptical about how things would work. But considering the current situations, we could make it happen in the best way we could. However, it was upsetting that it was not held in the presence of my dad and my brother,” Vamshi said.
While it was a novel experience for the couple and the family, it was a very rare moment for hundreds of friends and relatives who attended it live from around the globe in different time zones. When many of them attended it wearing casual dresses, a few wore traditional dresses to get the feel of attending the ceremony in person.
“I live just two kilometres away from their place. As the situation didn’t allow, we had to attend it through Zoom. But we enjoyed it,” said Sreekumar Pillai a family friend and neighbour.
“To get the feeling of being in the venue, I dressed up in kurtha and my wife wore saree. It is the first time that we are attending a live wedding online. We sometimes don’t get to watch a wedding so closely if it happens in front of a crowd. Here we could talk to them and to others whom we haven’t met for long,” he added.
For Indian weddings, the feast served after the ceremony, is inevitable. The vegetarian sadhya served on a banana leaf with numerous dishes and sweets, stands as a major element for the host as well as the guests.
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“Of course we missed the sadhya. But like how we dressed up to get the feel, we also prepared homemade sadhya. And I and my wife enjoyed it after we attended the ceremony,” said Sreekumar.
As the coronavirus crisis hopefully eases, the family is planning to conduct a wedding reception in Phuket in the presence of their loved ones exactly as they planned before. The family believes they can recreate all that they missed out during the Zoom wedding.
