The bride’s extravagant fashion display was one of the many highlights of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s second pre-wedding party — a multi-day Mediterranean cruise with stops in Portofino and Cannes.

Radhika wore a stunning collection of high-end couture, including a custom Versace gown that took a year of coordination between her fashion stylist and the brand to create, and a vintage Yves Saint Laurent for Dior dress from 1959. The most talked-about outfit was a personalized chiffon gown by London-based designer Robert Woon.

The dress had a love letter printed on it, which Ananth had written to Radhika when they first started dating.

The dress was a sweet ode to their love story. As she told Vogue, she did it to show her children and grandchildren that their love was like this.

Of course, love is the true hero of every wedding and modern couples are ensuring it takes centre stage during the ceremony – Anant and Radhika are an example of this.

Increasing demand for privatization

Over the past few years, personalization has emerged as a top wedding trend, which is no longer limited to just a peppy wedding hashtag or the couple’s initials on the wedding stationery, cake or decoration background. These personalized elements mostly reflect the bride and groom’s personality and their roots.

“Couples now plan their own weddings, whereas earlier the parents were completely in charge of the planning and arrangements. This shift in power is one of the major reasons why we are seeing a lot of demand for personalisation in weddings,” said Dakshita Bhatla, founder, lead producer and designer, DB & Spaces, a wedding planning company. india today,

Meanwhile, Mohsin Khan of Vivaah Luxury Weddings believes that the demand for personalisation is rising owing to celebrity and big-ticket weddings.

Showcasing a love story through costumes

Weddings too have a lot of focus on highlighting the love story. The route that Radhika took with her customised love letter gown is a popular approach to couture.

When fashion designer Kresha Bajaj got married in 2016, she designed a love story lehenga for her wedding.

The details of their love story were elaborately embroidered on their wedding lehenga – the proposal moment, their important events, and all the important moments leading up to the wedding were stitched on the lehenga.

This desire to make the wedding ceremony a symbol of love is still strong and Radhika has a candid opinion on the same.

In the meantime, here are some quick ideas to add a touch of your love story to your wedding dress:

• Get your names and wedding date embroidered on a part of your outfit. Alia Bhatt, Priyanka Chopra and Parineeti Chopra have also done this.
  

  

• You can also opt for a personalised pendant.
• Get a poem, shloka or quote embroidered on the dress.
• Get the skyline of the city where you met embroidered on the dress.
• For a small ceremony like sangeet or mehndi, wear coordinated clothes with interesting details about your relationship printed on them. A couple recently did this, and it looked great.
  

  

More Ways to Personalize Your Wedding Details

Decorations: Dakshita says, “When the couple and guests enter the wedding venue for the first time, the first thing they notice is the decorations. From small things like table centrepieces to grand setups, a lot can be done to highlight the couple’s love story at a wedding.”

Having a photo wall depicting the couple’s journey as part of the wedding decor is a popular concept. Similarly, the idea of ​​installing a dedicated screen to display their photos and pre-wedding shoot snippets is also popular. Although they do a good job of highlighting the love story, they have become mainstream.

Innovation and creativity are essential in the wedding personalisation business nowadays, especially when the aim is to go viral and create good photographic content for social media, which planners consider as one of the major reasons behind the demand for personalised décor elements.

To bring out your love story in wedding decorations you can consider the following:

A Love Storyboard: This may include how and where you met, some important dates, and other details.

Individual Booth: Did you meet your partner in school? Have a similar setup as you had at your wedding. If you both connected with each other through Bollywood or books, you can have a setup based on that theme as well. Speaking your heart out to the planner is the key to getting ideas that match best with your love story.

Table decoration: The tables can be decorated with cute things, like photo frames or souvenirs printed with fun facts about the couple.

Favorite Stations: Choose meaningful wedding gifts for guests (beyond the usual potlis and haathphools) and pick personalised notes that tell a story. They can also be in the form of a newspaper or a newsletter like Lady Whistledown’s (Bridgerton fans will know).

Interactive games: Apart from the couple shoe game, you can also plan some fun games for the guests that reflect your love story.

Theme Based Functions: Choose something that is important to you as a couple and have a special celebration based on that theme.

For example, a couple who got married in Jaipur organised a McDonald’s themed party as it was their favourite date spot in the initial years of dating.

To highlight your wedding, you don’t always have to use obvious elements.

When Delhiites Yash and Priyanka got married in April this year, they chose prayer flags as the ceiling decoration for their engagement. For them, it reflects their love for trekking and hill walks – they see these prayer flags wherever they go.

Yash said, “The best part about having this detail was that we could give those prayer flags as souvenirs to the guests who joined us at the wedding.”

Apart from decorations, small and big actions also help a lot in telling the world (guests) about your relationship. It could be your wedding entrance song or a special speech for your partner during the ceremony.

You can also get a song composed for your wedding based on your love story and play it at your wedding entrance, which is another major trend in Indian weddings.

Just remember this: plan everything the way you want, but leave the execution to the planners, so you can enjoy the festivities and live in the moment.