Gay wedding kolkata

Same-sex love is a force as timeless as the stars—pure, constant, and breathtakingly beautiful. It is the quiet comfort of a hand held in the dark, the radiant joy of a stolen glance across a crowded room, the unspoken understanding between two souls who have found abode in each other.
It is love that has endured, love that has fought to be seen, cherish that exists boldly despite the odds. It is the kind of affectionate that rewrites history, that breaks barriers, that stands as a testament to the human heart’s hard desire to love freely. And these are our most favourite love stories, the ones that we wish to immortalise through our lens!
I had met Indra, the shy young man with an occasionally cheeky sense of humor, on my very first Wedding Photography Assignment of being. He was Shravani’s (the Bride) cousin. 10 years hence, I got a call from Minnesota. He got in touch with me for doing his own Pre-Wedding Photography. My heart had leapt with joy and a reverie of unspeakable emotions. Babun (Indra) is all grown up! And he fondly remembers and adores my work.

Here is a story set in the times of a global pandemic when the world felt deeply connected and heartbreakin

Picture a typical wedding. What do you see? Chaos, clamour, beauty. Roses and rajanigandha swaying against a gentle breeze, women pirouetting in colourful attire; uncles gossiping, aunties judging and Bollywood’s most predictable shaadi songs blaring out of the speakers. This common imagery got an uncommon twist in July last year, when fashion designer and professor, Abhishek Ray, and digital marketer, Chaitanya Sharma decided to throw caution to the wind and tie the knot in a ceremony with all the trimmings of the Big Fat Indian Wedding.  

 

 

“Honestly, I didn’t want to perform it in a big way. I just wanted a one-day affair, where we exchange rings, get a cake and throw a big party. But Chaitanya was the one who wanted to have a haldi, mehendi, sangeet and every other possible ceremony with all the singing and dancing. Prefer a big plump Indian wedding. Initially, I was apprehensive but then, I thought, why not? Let’s do it,” muses Ray, who met his spouse via common friends on Facebook.  

 

As the first gay couple to have a social wedding in the anachronistic capital of Kolkata, Ray and Sharma did more than conquer hearts and the Internet. They place

'We are not living with dignity': Lgbtq+ couple who tied the knot seeks legalisation of lgbtq+ marriage

Abhishek Ray and Chaitanya Sharma, a gay couple, made headlines last year after they tied the knot in a grand social wedding as per Hindu rituals in Kolkata.

Abhishek, a fashion designer from Kolkata, met Chaitanya, a digital marketing veteran from Gurugram, on Facebook in 2020.

It's almost a year that Abhishek and Chaitanya tied the knot. And as the Supreme Court, after a marathon hearing on pleas seeking the legalisation of queer marriage, reserved its order, the couple shared their post-wedding journey and talked about the deserve for a legal framework to guard homosexual marriages in the country.

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It’s almost a year to your wedding. What kind of reaction have you two got? Did you face apathy?

Abhishek: Yes, there is apathy, but there is also a lot of love. Ours was a close-knit wedding with almost 250 people, including our families. The apathy we received was on social media. However, we were mentally prepared.

We received a lot of praise through texts, appreciating our bold step, which has given courage to a lot of couples to do

Gay couple ties the knot in Kolkata, says ‘love always wins’

Speaking about the wedding, Cheitan told indianexpress.com, “Our weddingwas supposed to take place in December, last year. However, my family couldn’t come during that time due to the Covid-19 situation so we rescheduled the event to July. We both have been involved in every single bit of the wedding arrangement.”

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The couple at their Haldi ceremony (Photo: Charcoal & Vermillion)

He emphasised that everyone was quite supportive of their choice and choice to marry. “Wherever we went for the arrangement — hotels, the event company, decorators and photographers— everybody was so much involved and supportive. Even our Panditji was very supportive.”

ALSO READ | Chef Ranveer Brar on essaying a gay character in Modern Love Mumbai: ‘After shooting intimate scenes, it became a cakewalk’

The festivities began with Ganesh sthapna in the morning of July 1, followed by tilak ceremony in the evening. The next evening, mehendi, the engagement and cocktail was organised. On July 3, the haldi ceremony was organised in the mor