Sanjana Rishi, the bride, stunned her groom and relatives when she wore a power pantsuit at her wedding last year, now she tells her real story. Just because she simply loved suits. But she also delivered a bold fashion statement. Do you think more brides will ditch traditional clothing in favor of the power suit?
An Indian-American entrepreneur, Sanjana married Delhi businessman Dhruv Mahajan on 20 September in Delhi. She had worked as a corporate lawyer in the US before returning to India. The couple was living together for close to a year.
Sanjana’s real love story
The pantsuit bride telling her real story said, “After being in a long-distance relationship with Dhruv for about 1.5 years, I moved back to India–not just for us but also to be closer to my family. So, I asked him to move in together and we started hunting for a place,” Sanjana told Humans of Bombay.
“That’s when it first hit me, visiting India and living in India are two drastically different experiences. Dhruv and I actually had to lie that we were married to get a place! And as soon as that happened, my relatives would ask, ‘When will you get married?’ The intrusiveness turned into pity. Don’t worry, you’ll get there,’ it was so annoying! I dreaded going to any wedding, because the first thing anyone asked was, ‘When’s the wedding?’ Dhruv would say, ‘ignore them. Why do you care?’ But the pressure that men face is nothing in comparison to what a woman does. Dhruv and I argued a lot about this, he’d calm me down and say, ‘We’ll get married when we’re ready’.
In a heart-to-heart conversation with Humans of Bombay Sanjana said, “And that’s what we did. Whilst living together, we really got to know each other first. I discovered that he didn’t know how to do laundry and calls all his friends every day! And he realized that I wasn’t as put together as my Instagram suggests. Of course, we had fights, but they just made us acknowledge our flaws and grow through them. And it was only after a year of living together that Dhruv proposed. One morning, he just went down on one knee and gave me the ring!”
“Soon after we were engaged, some of his friends made derogatory comments about women on social media and I got into an argument with them. They went and told Dhruv about it and even though his friends are so important to him, Dhruv sprang up in my defense.”
“Another time, while we were having dinner with his family, I was talking about having babies out of wedlock and how we shouldn’t judge those people. His family was taken aback but said nothing. Later, I told him, ‘I shouldn’t have said it,’ and he said, ‘I fell in love with you because you say what you feel. Why would you want to change that about yourself?’ And even on our wedding day, I chose to wear a power suit instead of a lehenga simply because I wanted to,” said Sanjana.
“Everyone was surprised, but Dhruv hugged me with the biggest smile on his face and whispered, ‘You’ve killed it!’A day after the wedding, I woke up to our wedding photos trending online; my outfit had gone viral. But the trollers didn’t like that I wasn’t dressed like a conventional ‘Indian bahu.’ They commented nasty things like, ‘Poor groom, he got the rubbish attention seeker wife’, ‘Crazy bride’ and whatnot.”
“But Dhruv and I just had a good laugh! Honestly, why should ‘what the world thinks’ matter to us? We’re just being ‘us’. And I keep saying this– marriage isn’t about losing ourselves to please each other or others. I’m unabashedly myself, and so is he– and that’s what makes this, makes us work.”
Aww, so this is the real story of the pantsuit bride! Isn’t it cute? As far as people are concerned, dear pantsuit bride… logon ka tou kaam hai kehna [it’s people’s job to talk]. Just ignore and them continue being who you are.
On your big day, it is important that you feel like the best version of yourself. Even if it requires breaking the stereotypes about brides, go for it. Because happy brides are the prettiest brides!
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