An India-meets-Germany Wedding Photography Story in Pune, Bengali style
As wedding photographers, it’s always great fun to travel – and Pune is always one of our favourite places to be in! Shampa & Matthias had a lovely 3 day wedding in Pune a few months ago. It was truly a multi-cultural wedding with a lot of participation from both their Indian and German friends + family.
Even though Shampa is originally from Pune, she has lived in Frankfurt (Germany) for many years and which is where she met Matthias for the first time. Currently they both live in Frankfurt. They were introduced by a common friend — they met for the first time at a wine bar and discovered that they actually live on the same street. Well, initially Shampa didn’t believe Matthias. When he offered to walk her home the first time, stating that he lived on the same street, she thought he was pulling a fast one and just making it up to spend more time with her. Fortunately, she took it as a compliment and things just went from there!
Around 30 of their German friends and family flew down to Pune for the wedding. They were very excited to be a part of the festivities and learn choreographed dances to Bollywood songs for the Sangeet cocktail evening. So Day 1 began with a welcome lunch and a round of dance practice.
With famed German efficiency (and the help of 1 choreographer + dance practice videos + beer and some encouragement from the couple), they caught up with the dances that the Indian cousins and friends had already been practicing for days! Apparently, when the friends had been asked in Germany whether they would like to learn a few dances, only a handful of them had volunteered. But once they saw how much fun it could be, they got into the spirit and almost everybody participated in at least one song, if not more!
The evening was a relaxed cocktail for friends and family to get to know each other better — a leisurely evening with good wine, food and music.
The next day brought on some more dance practice and mehendi for all the ladies, while the men were whisked off for beer-and-biryani to another location!
Before the mehendi, there was a short blessing ceremony for the bride, which almost always makes the family emotional…
The evening brought on the dancing for real, and everyone pulled it off with great panache…
The wedding day began with the sehra bandhi & the making of the bride…
Matthias was definitely the most enthusiastic dulha (groom) we have ever seen. He was very excited to be seated on the ghodi (horse) and danced along with all the baraatis from his perch!
The ceremony took place in the Bengali style…
The bride’s mother translated most of the happenings to German so that all the guests could follow…
The wedding was followed by a reception dinner…
Matthias was a great sport with the joota chhuppai! After the requisite amount of negotiation, Shampa’s cousins walked away with some cool winnings…
On this high note, we wish Shampa & Matthias all the very best and hope they have a wonderful married life together…
To hear more about their story, in their own words, do watch the trailer of the wedding movie we made for them below:
Happiness ~ Shampa + Matthias from Arjun Kartha Photography on Vimeo.
This is a Pune Wedding Photography Story. As Indian wedding photographers we have had the opportunity to travel to many wonderful places in India like Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Udaipur, Haridwar, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Kochi and so on. Weddings have even taken us overseas to beautiful destination wedding photographyspots like Brooklyn New York, Malaysia, Langkawi, Kaula Lampur etc. Read each Indian Candid Wedding Photography story to know how it all happened!
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