lavanya & mukesh

Lavanya Prakash & Mukesh Rajalingam { 27 & 29 JANUARY }

QUAY RESTAURANT, SYDNEY & SERGEANTS MESS, CHOWDER BAY, NSW

photos captured by: Lara Hotz | styling by: Ivy Lane Collective

FATE AWAITS | Lavanya and Mukesh graduated high school in the same year. Mukesh decided to pursue a law career and successfully applied for a Bachelor of Law in Canberra. Lavanya also chose law but planned on attending the University of Sydney. As fate would have it, a small error in her university preferences meant that Lavanya was soon enrolled at the University of Canberra instead. “Mukesh and I first met after a lecture in business statistics. Obviously it’s the aphrodisiac of the academic world!” Since then Lavanya and Mukesh have embarked on many adventures together. “We have lived and worked in New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong.” On a recent European adventure in Santorini Mukesh asked Lavanya to marry him. “Of course I said, ‘Yes’. It was a welcome surprise and so well timed as we were relocating back to our home city, Sydney.”

CELEBRATE | Lavanya and Mukesh held a long weekend summer wedding celebration which comprised of a catered Australian barbeque, a civil wedding ceremony at the couple’s favourite pincic spot, wedding reception at Quay Restaurant, traditional henna ceremony, Hindu fire ceremony and a lunch reception with Indian themed mocktails, food stations and professional Indian dancers. “We wanted to personalise everything as much as possible.” As harbourside residents of Kirribilli, the couple used Sydney as the backdrop for all their events. “We wanted to pay homage to our Hindu heritage, lives abroad, favourite food, wines and of course our home city.”

hindu celebrations

Lavanya also had two sarees for the Hindu ceremony and reception. “My sarees were from Mukesh’s hometown in South India. My mother-in-law flew to India to source the outfits for Mukesh, myself and our immediate family members as colour coordination is important to tradition.” Lavanya carried a bouquet of David Austin roses, peonies, dusty miller and brunia. For the civil ceremony her bouquet was exclusively David Austin roses.

the civil celebrations

I CHOOSE YOU | Everything about Lavanya and Mukesh’s wedding was a celebration of their favourite things. “For our love of oysters and sparkling wine, we had an oyster station set up after our civil ceremony and our guests were served Ruinart Blanc De Blanc. For our love of the water and living by the harbour, we opted for yachts instead of cars to transport our guests from the ceremony to the reception and in memory of our stay in Lake Como, Mukesh, myself and our bridal party cruised the harbour on a wooden Italian Riviera boat. Our reception wines were selected from our favourite wine regions and even the tables were named after our favourite cities. We had little anecdotes about each city’s significance to us. For example during our stay in Florence we discovered our favourite pasta recipe and included a copy of it under our guests’ seats!”

IN FULL BLOOM | “I adore flowers. Orchids are a staple in our home and I was keen to incoporate as many flowers as possible into our wedding.” For the civil wedding reception, the table centrepieces featured a round mirror base and a circular vase filled with vibrant pink, purple and blue chrysanthemums, roses and green foliage. Candles and silver lanterns also decorated the venue. The civil ceremony arch set a romantic and inviting tone with hydrangeas, olives, roses, chrysanthemums and phalaenopsis orchids.

PRESSED IN LOVE | Following the events’ colour schemes, the couple had midnight blue and grey for their civil wedding invitations and gold for their Hindu wedding stationery. “Both sets were letterpressed and printed on soft cotton paper.”

“Mukesh and I also created a wedding website. It was an easy, inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to collect RSVPs, dietary requirements and keep our guests updated with the latest information.”

““If ever we found ourselves feeling overwhelmed with wedding plans we would cook a meal together or take ourselves on a date to our favourite restaurant.
I highly recommend this as a way of de-stressing!””

GIFT TO YOU | The couple’s wedding favours were personalised with their wedding logo. “They were wine bottle stoppers with a note wishing our loved ones more magical moments to toast to.” Hindu wedding favours were intricate jewellery boxes from India. Following the final wedding reception all the flowers were wrapped up and gifted to guests. “It was a tangible representation of the colour, joy and love of our wedding that our guests could take home.”

SERENADE | One of Lavanya’s favourite memories from the day was being serenaded by Mukesh to Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud. “It was so special because Mukesh often played this song to me in the lead up to our wedding to keep me calm.” The groom’s siblings also performed a witty rap about Mukesh being his mother’s ‘prized baby’.

HONEYMOON | Lavanya and Mukesh celebrated their honeymoon in East Africa and the Seychelles. “It had always been a dream of ours to get up close with gorillas in Uganda, and lions, cheetahs, giraffes, elephants, leopards and rhinos in Tanzania and Kenya. It was a once in a lifetime trip. We also experienced the beauty of the Indian Ocean on a private island in the Seychelles at the same place where Prince William and Kate Middleton honeymooned.”