Tanvi Garg and Alok Khetan – Takua Pa, Thailand

Alok, Executive Director of a chemicals manufacturing and trading company, & Tanvi, Brand Manager of a french sports company, met at a common friend’s birthday in 2013. “Alok appeared like a very down to earth, sorted and mature individual to me,” says Tanvi. Alok thought she was ‘full of a zest for life’ and wanted to get to know her better.

Except it went nowhere until they met again by chance, months later and realized they both were heading to Europe for their respective Masters and MBA program. “It was either a sign or just pure fate! Still, Alok was very careful and didn’t show a hint of interest for months! We only started talking when he got in touch with me in Europe, and very slowly and steadyily our conversations built up and the sparks ignited,” Tanvi says.

She adds, “When we returned to Singapore, back to the SAME STREET we lived on, we started our ‘ALOVI’ journey. We’re complete opposites, in terms of personalities and even interests. As cliche as it sounds, opposites really do attract, we balance each other out in every aspect. There was no eureka moment really where we ‘fell in love’. We’re still falling in love with each other every day!”

The couple tied the knot at JW Marriott Resort and Spa Khao Lak in Phuket Thailand. The bride tells us all about it here:

Wedding Venue
We were evaluating various beach wedding venues and these were our most important considerations:
– A nice hotel with a private beach
– Accessibility for our guests from all around the world
– Great food
– Wedding planners in the country and their experience with North Indian weddings
– ‘Indian wedding friendliness’ of the country’s officials.

The choice was between Bali and Thailand. We went with Thailand because the food is better (especially for vegetarians) and there is definitely an ease with making arrangements for an Indian wedding with the Thai government and officials.

JW Marriott Resort and Spa, Khao Lak
A lot of our friends in Singapore had hosted their weddings in Thailand and we wanted to avoid the venues already used in our social circles. So we were really only left with Chiang Mai, Sofitel Krabi and JW Marriott Khao Lak. Chiang Mai was a great option except there would be no beach wedding there. Sofitel Krabi was another possibility but the hotel was a bit old. Then we saw the JW Marriott, Khao Lak and fell in love with it!

The JW Marriott was a beautiful hotel with great hospitality, a gorgeous beach, good food in-house. The staff includes a wonderful culinary team as well as an extremely cooperative general manager and events manager. The two of them worked very closely with us to ensure we were able to pull off an extraordinary wedding.

Wedding Planning
We hired Ms Devki Hemlani of Do Etc. to manage our wedding. She and her team were amazing and very personal. Along with being very experienced with North Indian weddings, they also made us feel like the most special couple through the planning process. They’re warm and friendly and go the extra mile to make your wedding what you want it to be.

The most fun part of the wedding prep was planning décor and themes. I had some idea of what I wanted my wedding to look like, and to actually be talking about it and visualizing with the decor teams was great fun.

The most stressful part was personally looking into the room allocations and RSVPs. It took a lot of time on a daily basis and with Indian weddings it does get difficult when you choose to consider the comfort of each and every guest, balancing relationships, room type, placement, ability to walk a flight of stairs, bathroom type etc. It took us almost 60 hours, over a span of 2 weeks (with both the dads, mums, sisters, Alok and myself) to figure out the room allocation! However, doing this part well helped ensure the events went off flawlessly.

Wedding Functions
Our Welcome Dinner was called Sun, Sea & Sand and it was supposed to be on the beach front but it began to rain. Fortunately we had a back-up plan and it was stunning.

Khom-Loy! We released Khom Loys into the sky at the end of the first night along with all our guests. It was a traditional Thai moment and something so beautiful and filled with meaning. It lit up the sky and took our breaths away! I wore a bespoke Nachiket Barve creation, fabricated especially for me based on my personality- it was an excellent experience!

The theme for our Mehndi/Pool Party was Candy Pop and literally everything was in candy pop colors. Our guests enjoyed it very much. I wore a Varun & Nidhika lehenga from AZA in Mumbai.

My favorite event was the Sangeet Soireé. We had a European theme (I wore a bridal creation from Manish Malhotra) and held an awards night.

Friends and family performed dances for Alok and I and the party. Our sisters planned interesting awards to honor guests who made it from far away. It was also a way of engaging the entire crowd and making it easier for them to make friends and party together. Let’s not forget the important role the bar played through all the events which really helped the crowd groove for a full three days.

My dream was to have a sunset wedding and we actually managed to capture the stunning sunset during our wedding!

They set off fireworks the minute Alok and I completed our pheras and he put sindoor on my head. It was breathtaking! I wore a Tarun Tahiliani lehenga customized in the colour I chose.

We ended the festivities with a grand reception with a beautiful theme of red & gold, which turned out to be a classic and elegant affair.

The Wedding Makers
Wedding planner- would definitely recommend I Do Etc. For anyone who is planning to get married in Thailand- they are amazing. Loved spending time with them at every meeting and visualizing each aspect of our wedding with them. Great team to work with!

Photographer- We used Picture Perfect (Mumbai) and candid photographer Dev Purbiya (Mumbai) to cover our entire wedding. While Picture Perfect covered the entire wedding excellently and made Alok and I feel like celebrities, Dev Purbiya did an equally wonderful job in covering the most special candid moments. I highly recommend them for those looking to have a Bollywood-style coverage of your wedding! They’re both very approachable, dynamic and on-trend with their style and personalities.

Make-up artist- Mr Jaywant Thakre and team (Mumbai) did my make up for me throughout the 3 days of events. Mr Thakre is one of those celebrity make-up artists who spends a good amount of time before (via chat or phone and a personal appointment) to understand you. He does not care at all to impose his style on you. I personally thought it was very important to feel comfortable, and therefore focused on the adaptability of my make up artist. What I really liked about him was how he understood not only the glamor of a big wedding but the cultural aspect too- he used to put a ‘kaala tikka’ on me before any event to save me from evil eyes! That was really heart warming and not what I expected from someone who has spent his life dealing with Bollywood queens and models!

Food catering- Foodlink– Priya Gogte: Extremely professional and top quality food! They overcame the worst weather conditions, were always on time, had great hygiene and a real understanding of food and cuisines.

Entertainers: Jankee Parikh, Shobana, Sophie Chowdhary, DJ Suketu, Bartender Clayton and team, DJ Hiren, Rahul Arya

Photos Courtesy- Picture Perfect India and Dev Purbiya

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