The One Where We Met (September 2018)

Our story begins in August 2018, as a 25 year old from Michigan. I had just graduated nursing school, with a world of opportunities at my feet. My sister Srivi and I decided to go down to California for a few days to kick back, relax, and celebrate this huge accomplishment. We stayed with some family friends and while we were there met various people but didn’t think much of it. It was a pretty uneventful trip, and we joked about how crazy it would be if we met the person we were going to marry on that trip. We both thought there was absolutely no way that would happen. Oh how wrong were we. The last day we were there, our family friend called to say that and Aunty and Uncle were coming from San Jose to meet us. Those people ended up being Madhav’s parents. It became pretty clear that a potential relationship could be in the works. Not long after returning to Michigan, Madhav’s parents and mine spoke and seemed to get along. Horoscopes and compatibility were checked and we were given the green light to start talking. It didn’t take long after Madhav and I were introduced and started talking that we realized we got along really well. A few texts every so often turned to daily phone calls and FaceTime dates. Some words exchanged here and there quickly turned into conversations about life, our goals and dreams, plans for the future, our hardships and struggles, our successes, and what makes us who we are today.

Madhav ended up visiting Detroit for the first time on December 22, 2018. We spent our first date getting Indian food at Neehee’s and visiting the Detroit Zoo Christmas lights display.

12/22/2018

Our First Adventures (January/February 2019)

January 2019 marked Annapurna’s first trip to California to meeting Madhav and his family. We spent the weekend visiting Monterey and Carmel, seeing the infamous aquarium and driving down the costal highway, jamming to A. R. Rahman songs and eating Burmese food.

01/04/2019

Valentine’s Day weekend of 2019 brought a lot of firsts. Madhav got me flowers (the first time someone ever bought me flowers), and came to Detroit and met some of my friends and family. We said “I love you” for the first time, and had an epic photoshoot in the snow in my childhood park. We also got stuck in a terrible snow storm while driving home from our favorite Mexican restaurant (El Charro’s obviously)! This felt like a very pivotal point in our relationship, since we started realizing that we wanted to get married.

02/16/2019

Time to Meet the Parents

As the year brought spring, it also presented the opportunity for our parents to meet for the first time. I flew to San Jose with my parents to meet the Vissa family in March of 2019. Madhav and I enjoyed a relaxing weekend with our parents, and my family and I definitely appreciated the opportunity to visit the Bay Area and escape the Michigan tundra. It was very clear to both of us by this point that we wanted to spend our lives together, and when we told our parents about this, they was nothing but love and acceptance of the relationship! How lucky are we to be in a relationship where our parents and families have nothing but love and support for everyone involved!

03/16/2019

The One With The Proposal

Ugadi of 2019 was a day that changed our lives forever. The morning started auspiciously by going to the temple, followed by introducing Madhav to my dance teacher. Then we got super dressed up and headeed to downtown Detroit to watch the Broadway production of Hamiliton! The show was incredible but you’d have to be blind to not realize that there was something else on Madhav’s mind besides the incredible show. After the show ended, Madhav suggested that we go to a park to take some pictures, since we were all dressed up. Even though my biggest concern was that we didn’t have my nice camera to take pictures, I gave in and we headed to the Rochester Municipal Park, which had been a special place to me my entire life. We got to the park and were wondering around, when we came across a tree with pictures of us around it. Madhav then got down one a knee and said a bunch of beautiful things, none of which I remember. He ended his speech by asking me to marry him, and of course I said YES! After he put the ring on my finger, I turned around to see my sisters, parents, and Madhav’s family as well surprise us and celebrate with us! We ended the evening by getting dinner at Kruse and Muer with both of our families!

04/06/2019

May of 2019 marked my first time visiting Madhav in Berkeley. I got to see the children’s hospital where Madhav (and eventually I) worked, the Berkeley campus and Marina, tried Sliver Pizza for the first time, and got to explore where we would live together after we got married!

Nischitardam

On June 8, 2019, Madhav and I celebrated our engagement with a traditional engagement ceremony, or nischitardam. We celebrated in my childhood home in Rochester Hills, MI surrounded by close family and friends. Our celebration also fell on Arjun’s 4th birthday.

06/08/2019

Engagment

Madhav and I took our engagment pictures in Downtown Detroit. We got to explore the beauties of the city while also enjoying some coffee and macarons.

06/2019

Celebrations!

The celebrations continued in July 2019 with an engagement party in Madhav’s hometown of San Jose. It was a beautiful day filled with friends, food and family. The weekend was also the first time Peddakka and Srivi came to the Bay Area, so we got to spend some time exploring San Francisco with Annu and Preeti before the weekend of festivities. One of the more entertaining parts of the engagement party was taking directions from the very sweet but painfully formal photographer. Being called “madame” and “sir” the entire evening is not as cool as it sounds. Trust me.

07/13/2019

Fall 2019

Even though work was becoming increasingly stressful for both of us, somehow we managed to find time to see each other once a month. In September, I somehow managed to surprise Madhav for his birthday by flying to San Jose without him knowing. We celebrated with a fun family dinner, and a cooking class in Palo Alto where we learned how to make different kinds of risotto.

October brought another trip to California. We visited the Berkeley Marina and we finished the weekend by seeing the Kuchipudi Art Academy’s production of Ardhanareeswara.

In November, Amma and I, along with the Vissa/Kristipati crew (minus Madhav whomp) went to India for wedding shopping! It was an exciting but exhausting 3 week trip including a visit to Chennai and Kanchi for sari shopping and seeing the infamous Kamakshi Devi temple! We ended shipping back almost 14 boxes worth of wedding shopping back to the states!

Happy Holidays!

After returning from India, Madhav came to Detroit to celebrate the New Year together. We got to go see the Christmas Carol at Meadowbrooke Theater (a favorite tradition of mine) and had lunch with Peddakka, Srivi and Lalitha. I surprised Madhav with matching Christmas pajamas, which has become another holiday tradition.

Cheers to the New Year 2020

Madhav and I got to ring in the New Year together in Michigan. We first went to the hospital where I worked to bring some of the nurses and other staff working some cookies, and show Madhav where I worked. We then met Peddakka, Dan and Srivi in Downtown Rochester to celebrate! New Year’s Day brought the tradition of going to the Vithala home for the annual New Years Day puja. Madhav definitely cashed in his brother-in-law card and got a nice shoulder massage from Srivi before the puja.

L.A. Dreams

After a grueling work week, Madhav and I got to go on vacation together and spent a weekend in Los Angeles. The trip included visits to the beach, spending a day at Universal Studios, walking down Hollywood Blvd., and seeing the city from Griffith Park Observatory. I definitely enjoyed the chance to wear shorts in January. While visiting Universal Studios, we got to visit Harry Potter World and even saw some of the sets from “Jaws” and “The Good Place”

01/31/2020

Chronicles of a Global Pandemic

After an amazing vacation together in January, we were looking forward to spending time together in March before our upcoming wedding. On the day we were both supposed to head out to Austin and Portland for our bachelorette and bachelor parties respectively, the entire world shut down due through the COVID-19 pandemic. What was supposed to be the start of our wedding festivities ended up being replaced with national stay at home orders. As time passed, the pandemic showed no signs of ending, and we had to postpone our wedding because Madhav and his family would not be able to travel in May. Instead of planning a wedding, we both ended up spending our time working on the frontlines as healthcare workers during the initial days of the pandemic.

Not even the world shutting down was going to stop our parents and us from having our wedding so affter speaking with our families and Babai, we ended up finidng a muhurtham for our wedding on July 26, 2020. It had been almost 4 months of not seeing each other, when I flew to California in June to visit Madhav in the apartment they would live in together, and to get all my paperwork in order to get a nursing license to work in California. Shortly before my trip, I found out I was accepted into the University of Michigan for a Masters in Nursing in Leadership, Analytics and Innovation program! Since I’m obsessed with matching, I knew I had to get Madhav matching Michigan gear! Go Blue!

06/12/2020

Our Wedding

Pelli Kuthuru and Pelli Koduku

The first of the wedding festivities was my Pelli Kuthuru or “making of the bride” ceremony. Even though COVID-19 prevented us from celebrating with all of our friends and family, it was still a beautiful function filled with love and tradition.

07/23/2020

The day before the wedding brought Madhav’s Pelli Koduku function and Snathakam ceremonies. The best part was when Madhav did his Kasi yatra and pretended to leave for Kasi with his umbrella and wooden shoes, so Vishnu had to bribe him to stay and marry me with a piece of bellam

Our Wedding Day

Although the global panedmic put a huge stress and damper on our initial wedding plans, there was something so absolutely beautiful about our wedding day. We didn’t get caught up in the chaos of the day and instead got to really find peace and meaning in the ceremonies we were performing. The center of everything stayed the same and what the whole day was about: us.

After the ceremony, we headed to the Bharatiya Temple to do darsanam and take some pictures. It felt so surreal walking through the halls I played in as a child, now as someone’s wife!

Happily Ever After

It wasn’t the dream gown or venue or anything they had originally planned for, but we were lucky to be able to celebrate with some family and friends later that evening. There was good food (Olive Garden!) laugher, an awesome dance party, and a beautiful firework send off to end the night! It was truly just a perfect way to be together, after not interacting with anyone in months.