How One Bride (& Planner) Wore Her Mum's Vintage Jewellery & Outfit At Her Wedding!

More and more brides are choosing to wear vintage jewelry, heirloom outfits and accessories passed on from generation to generation these days. To us, it's probably the best thing to happen - because we are tired of seeing the same Sabya lehengas everywhere. But then, once in a while - you get some really special girls who put together their wedding outfit ever so thoughtfully and Devika Narain and Company★ 4.6 , ace wedding designer and international wedding planner is one of them. Just like her dedication to making every bride's dream come true, she also made her love story a special one by redesigning and recreating her mum's lehenga to her wedding ceremony. She shared all the details with us, so read on...

DEVIKA SAYS:

The story behind the lehenga is a long and funny one. My mom had got the gold lehenga made for her Reception, not her Wedding. Her mom refused to pay for her lehenga so her MIL got a gold lehenga made on her insistence. Over the years all of my family - mostly, my cousins have worn that lehenga and it was known as the "most borrowed" lehenga in my family. So when I was 14 years old, I told my mom that this lehenga is worn by everyone, will I get to wear it for my wedding? My mom, thoughtfully then kept it aside.

Years passed, I had completely forgotten about the lehenga and when the time came for my wedding - Joe (Joseph Radhik, International Photographer) and I decided to have a non-religious wedding. I went through this whole phase where I did not know if I wanted to wear a gown or a lehenga. I also went through designer lehenga angst - should I opt for a Sabya or a Raw Mango instead? Eventually one day, Joe and I got talking and we shared our sartorial interests - he wanted to wear a tux and I wanted to wear a lehenga. It's our wedding and we are allowed to wear whatever we both each want to wear - so off we went our ways to decide on what to eventually wear. And that's how he wound up in his blue tuxedo and I wound up in this muted gold lehenga.

For me, it's very symbolic because I had intended to wear all my family heirloom jewels for my wedding. My family owned this beautiful blue Firoza jewelry and I wanted to be able to have every bit of my ancestors with me when I get married as a way for them to bless me. It beautifully went to accompany the adage - something old, something borrowed, something blue, right? I finally wore my mom's lehenga, only the blouse was new - everything else fit me on point. Sanjay from Raw Mango was nice enough to dye the blouse to get the exact shade - the zardosi on it over the years has become rusted so it was impossible to find those colors but he managed to make it happen. The border on the dupatta was handstitched by my aunt. It was personalized to that extent. 

For my jewelry, I wore my Nani's, my Dadi's, my moms and my great grandmother's jewelry. What was incredible was the ring Joe gave me belonged to his grandmother. So I was literally standing there with 4-generations of family wedding jewelry from both sides. Only my maatha patti was borrowed from my cousin who owns a silver jewelry label called Raabel in Lucknow. 

Fun fact though, I belong to a community of Mathurs and we name all our jewelry- so my earrings were called Khatkas. My long necklace on my neck was called a Patlehaar. The most interesting bit is that every piece of jewelry has a name and that literally gives them and me a personality. 

All pictures by Two Mann Studios

Devika Narain married Joseph Radhik in an intimate ceremony near Lucknow.