Gopal and Sanam
Shot with: Hyds Valencia for Imagine Nation Photography
I recently checked my hard drive to see which photos to upload when I was surprised to find around 30 wedding shoots I haven’t uploaded or blogged about yet (on top of birthdays and other events), all shot during my two-year stay with Imagine Nation. Some of the shoots date back to 2009. So, in line with my attempt to post (almost) all my previous shoots and have zero backlog, I’ll be posting a weekly entry called “Wedding Wednesday”. Starting this week, I’ll be posting a wedding shoot every Wednesday (doh). To start off, here’s an interesting Indian wedding shoot from 2009 (I know it’s Thursday now but whatever) – Gopal and Sanam’s wedding.
I had no experience shooting Indian weddings, so I didn’t know what to expect. I only knew that Indian weddings last for several days, almost a week even, and the event that we were shooting was only one out of five consecutive wedding days. I learned that we were shooting the ceremonies reenacting the wedding of the bride and groom’s parents. Normally, the weddings of the bride and groom’s respective parents are done on two separate days, but the couple decided to do both on the same day – Sanam (the bride)’s parents in the afternoon and Gopal (the groom)’s parents in the evening.
So, in the afternoon, the ceremonies for Sanam’s parents were done before lunch time at her house. I remember this was scheduled a few days after typhoon Ondoy, and Sanam was telling us that their house was actually flooded at waist-level after the typhoon. On the day of the shoot, however, the house looked beautiful and had no trace of flood.
This is the part where Sanam, her mom, and her relatives were made up and accessorized in preparation for the wedding:
Sanam’s dad prepares as well:
Gopal arrives with a bouquet of flowers for his bride:
The boys make a joyful noise at Sanam’s parents’ “wedding” ๐
