We’ve all heard the saying “distance makes the heart grown fonder.”
Distance couldn’t stop Abirami and Dilshan from falling in love! What started as a friendship soon turned to love after these two met while working at Deloitte. After maintaining a long-distance relationship their six-year anniversary came and went with no proposal (much to Abirami’s surprise!). Dilshan was finally able to outwit and Abirami with a surprise proposal when he got down on one knee with the ring she’d been hinting at for ages. Take a look at their gorgeous Hindu wedding inspired by their South Indian and Sri Lankan cultures.
How we met
“We both met in our graduate year at Deloitte, our first meeting could not have been more unromantic. Despite us having very contrasting personalities, we became good friends over the year. It took a long time for us to admit our feelings, despite our closest friends subconsciously pushing us towards each other. Our friendship evolved into love, and as they say, ‘The rest is history’.”
When I knew he was the one
“We both knew that we had a good thing quite early on into our relationship. We were good friends before we started dating, which made us comfortable around each other, whether it be acting the fool, debating those serious topics, or laughing out loud at a good dad joke.”
Marriage to us means
“This line from RM Drake beautifully captures what love means to us: “Love is a touch of magic and a handful of dreams”. To us, marriage celebrates this love for a lifetime.”
The proposal
“During the year leading up to our engagement, Dilshan had moved to Melbourne for work. At that time, we had both met each other’s parents and we were starting to discuss the prospect of sharing our lives together. Our six-year anniversary came and went. We had a romantic dinner reflecting back on our relationship. A mid-dinner call from my father to Dilshan’s phone did arouse my sneaky suspicions, but at the end of the evening, there was still no proposal, nor a ring.
A couple of weeks later, my girlfriends wanted to organise a catch up at my apartment, but little did I know that Dilshan was orchestrating this ‘catch-up’ behind the scenes. Friday night came, and the girls played their roles well, routinely texting me saying they were on the way. When the doorbell rang, I buzzed the girls up and was busy doing some last minute frantic cleaning. I was mid-way through unloading my dishwasher and in bursts Dilshan, who had secretly flown in from Melbourne that afternoon!
I was in such a state of shock that I didn’t even register the fact that he was down on one knee, holding in his hand the most beautiful diamond ring, set in a rose gold band (exactly like the one I had dropped so many hints about). When it all finally sunk in, of course, the answer was yes! I did love that he was successfully able to outwit my cluey and suspicious nature. He told me to pack an overnight bag and whisked me away to a romantic dinner at Flying Fish Jones Bay Wharf, which boasted magnificent views of Sydney harbour.”
Wedding Planning
“13 months seems like ample time to plan a wedding, but time literally flies. We enjoyed our post-engagement bliss for one month before locking in a venue. We had attended many friends’ weddings and had a fair idea about Sydney wedding venues. The only challenge was trying to coordinate auspicious dates with our pundit and the availability of our preferred venues. As a result of the to and fro, and because we wanted to celebrate both my South Indian Hindu background and Dilshan’s Sri Lankan Buddhist faith, we ended up having our Hindu wedding on a Sunday and our Buddhist wedding on the following Friday. A Friday Reception worked out well in hindsight as a nice gate-opener to the weekend. Securing suppliers for Sundays and Fridays is generally a lot easier than Saturdays. The gap between the two events worked well in terms of planning unique elements for each event.”
Our favourite moments of the wedding…
Our favourite moment was when we first saw each other at the Hindu wedding, we could not stop grinning at each other. We were completely oblivious to all the other wedding commotion happening around us.
My wedding style was…
Modern and elegant, staying true to key traditional elements.
We had the most fun…
We had epic levels of fun during our first dance. We had choreographed a special number to the song You Give Me Something by Jamiroquai, which incorporated plenty of twirls to show off my layered lehenga skirt. It was such an upbeat way to open up the dance floor for the evening.
I cried when…
I was overcome with emotion during my Reception speech as I looked around the room at our family and closest friends. We were grateful beyond measure to have so many loved ones celebrating our love with us.
It was most important to me that…
Making sure that our personality as a couple was reflected in our wedding events. We wanted to keep things simple, fun and above all, we wanted our loved ones to relax and enjoy the celebrations.
