Kajal Aggarwal’s wedding with Gautam Kitchlu was one of the few events that the entire country looked forward to. Maintaining a small guest list of 64 people including the wedding crew, Kajal Aggarwal’s wedding functions took place in full-swing leaving the netizens swooning over the fairy-tale-like feel of it. Ambika Gupta the cofounder of the A-Cube project, was the mastermind behind making the wedding a super successful one.
Speaking exclusively to Bollywood Hungama, Ambika Gupta opened up about the details that went behind making this wedding memorable for the rest of their lives for Kajal Aggarwal and Gautam Kitchlu. Every function had a separate theme and the couple gave their inputs as well to it. Take a look at a few of the excerpts from our conversation.
Talking about planning the wedding in less than 40 days, Ambika recalled that she met Kajal through the famous stylist Ami Patel who introduced the two and they got into serious discussion. In a week’s time, Kajal Aggarwal and Gautam Kitchlu had given their nod to the A-Cube Project to handle the wedding.
Speaking of how involved Kajal and Gautam were during the wedding planning, Ambika said, “Like every bride and groom, they had a few ideas in mind and pictures to give us a clearer vision of their ideas. There was no particular idea that they had in mind, just the references. They did have their wedding functions decided and the venues, which made it easier for us. All the ideas were given by the A-Cube, but of course, Kajal and Gautam had a lot of inputs as well in terms of colours. As a professional, it was my part to bring the best out of what was asked of me. I was very overwhelmed initially with the thought of doing such major functions during these trying times. So, keeping the idea of them being celebrities aside, I thought that I have to understand that they’re normal people and that they will eventually want to do the basic Q&A sessions between the bride and the groom. Kajal and Gautam were so cooperative and they did the question and answer round and then we had figured that the theme would be Kashmir to Kanyakumari since they had a special connection to these places.”
Ambika then spoke about the functions that they had in mind. She said, “We wanted it to be unique and something very personal. So for the first event we did the Radha Krishna pooja, and we kind of wanted to give it a temple-like feeling so we recreated something similar to Vrindavan. We followed the colour scheme was that of dark pink and light pink. The second was very soufflé, which was Mehndi and Haldi and then Gauri Pooja. There’s this piece in Como Lake that has a very serene black and white checkered flooring and I wanted convert that into a Chettinad-looking place because that is the similar flooring. We also had to connect Kajal to South India because of her huge fan following.”
“When I first spoke to Ami and Kajal, I realized that Kajal was wearing an outfit by an organization that helps in empowering women and is based out in Bengaluru and I thought why not recreate something of that sort. We also recreated the ‘petty’ which a farmer uses to carry his tools. Kajal has actually used these petties in her new house as décor. We kept the entire essence by choosing local fabrics and things like banana leaves to keep it more authentic. For the last event, the Kashmir one, the idea was to create a pyramid, like a mountain valley. We also took prints and designs from local things around Kashmir. We used mirror flooring and we kind of wanted to mimic the idea of the floating flower market.”
Designing an entire wedding in a matter of 35 days, especially during the COVID-19 times, Ambika and her team had to face a lot of issues. The designer says that she herself isn’t aware of how it all happened, but is really glad that it did. “It’s like how they say ‘hire an amateur to cut costs’. We have built a reputation over these years across India and not just South India. We chose the right vendors, through my contacts and got everything sorted in a very limited period of time. Everything was on 3-D and in-house, including the crew, we were 64 people and it was nothing we hadn’t done in the past. Luckily the scale wasn’t as massive and Kajal was very clear that she did not want to pressurize her parents because the wedding ceremonies were from their end. Kajal did not want to display that she is a celebrity and wanted it to be meaningful. She wanted the function to be about her family and at the same time, she needed it to look classy since this was going to go in the media.”
“The pressure was pretty much-similar to every other wedding and the fact that I’m being interviewed for my work with a positive aspect then it accounts for something. I chose every vendor and process carefully and we were thorough with our measurements so it was easier for them to comply. The biggest challenge was to have both the families on the same place because of their busy schedules. We had to ensure that the designs were approved by both of them and not just one of them.”
Concluding the conversation, Ambika spoke about how Kajal’s parents gave her a gift for designing the wedding so beautifully and they even said that she was now family to them. Kajal Aggarwal has recently completed one month of being married to Gautam and had taken to her Instagram to share a few candids.
Also Read: PICTURES: Kajal Aggarwal and Gautam Kitchlu go snorkeling on their honeymoon
