It ran from a quiet house before dawn to a fire that was still burning at four in the morning. Here it is in order — and every chapter opens into the photographs it came from.
Before any of it — before the crowds, the cameras, the schedule taped to the fridge — there was just a house full of the people who have known us the longest, and the quiet, unglamorous work of getting a family ready for a wedding.
Open the reel27 photographs
A house does not become a home on the wedding day. It has been practising for years.
Day One · evening · the stage
Two families who had been quietly out-choreographing each other for weeks finally showed their hand. Every song was somebody's idea, every routine had one person who refused to learn it, and the floor never emptied.
Open the reel104 photographs · 1 film
Sangeet ended with everyone chatting at the poolside late into the night.
Day Two · late morning · the courtyard
The actual turmeric had already happened quietly at ghar, so this was something else: a group of artists leading a Radha-Krishna performance, marigold petals thrown until nobody's clothes were the right colour anymore, and a round of bride-versus-groom games that got far more competitive than either family intended.
Open the reel49 photographs · 1 film
Day Two · afternoon · poolside
The one afternoon with nothing scheduled, which lasted exactly as long as it took for the first person to be thrown in. Wet clothes, borrowed shirts, and the loudest quiet hour of the whole wedding.
Open the reel39 photographs
Day Two · nightfall · on the road
It is a short walk. It took an hour. Somewhere behind the horses and the lights and a hundred people dancing backwards down the road was a groom who could not stop grinning.
Open the reel53 photographs · 1 film
Day Two · late evening · the mandap steps
She arrived with her parents instead, artists leading her the whole way down to the steps while we both tried not to grin too hard. By the time the garlands actually went on, it was the first real look we'd had at each other all day.
Open the reel77 photographs · 1 film
Everything before this was preparation. Everything after it was ours.
Day Two · small hours · around the fire
By now the hall had thinned out to the people who would have stayed until morning regardless. Seven times around the fire, one promise at a time, in a language older than either of our families — and then it was done.
Open the reel21 photographs
With the seventh step, you became my friend. May I never lose your friendship.
Whenever we could steal ten minutes
Pulled aside between events, still in whatever we were wearing, usually being told to hurry. These are the only photographs from the whole wedding where it was quiet.
Open the reel1222 photographs
The chapters above are the edit. Underneath sits everything the photographers actually handed over.
