Over the last few weeks, news has been abuzz anticipation over Karnataka’s own Rashmika Mandanna and Telugu star Vijay Deverakonda’s nuptials. While rumours floated around as details were kept under wraps, the couple announced their marriage with an Instagram post. Glimpses of the wedding showed a traditional scene with the couple being showered in rose petals, playfully tapping on each other’s hands, smiling widely and tearing up at the enormity of the moment. “Rashmika and Vijay are warm and welcoming people. And when photographers feel that warmth, it translates into photos,” explains Siddharth Sharma, founder, House on the Clouds, the city-based wedding photography company which captured these moments.
A few months ago, Sharma was approached by the couple’s wedding planner with an skeletal outline of the project. Speaking about the secrecy surrounding the nuptials, Sharma calls it ‘about the same’ as the other celebrity weddings the company has photographed in recent years, including Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt’s in ’22 and Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra’s in ’24. “Only one person in the whole company knew whose wedding we were going to be shooting and that was me. We were a team of seven photographers and filmmakers – they found out the day they landed in Udaipur,” reveals Sharma, who has been a photographer for 12 years.
When the shot of Mandanna with happy tears in her eyes is brought up, Sharma says that the key to capturing emotion is learning how and when to anticipate it. “Having shot a lot of Telugu weddings, we knew there are moments where that feeling hits – like when they lower the sheet held between the couple and they look at each other for the first time. Rashmika and Vijay are visibly, deeply in love, so all we did was be ready to capture the moment,” says Sharma.
The shot which does this best and Sharma chooses as his favourite is the one in which Mandanna plants a kiss on Deverakonda’s nose. “It was impromptu, taken right after the ceremony. We were expecting it, because there’s a moment when realisation hits the couple that they are married – it’s heartwarming to witness.”
There have been moments like it in the other two celeb weddings too, one of Advani and Malhotra locking lips under the mandap and another, a moment between Ranbir and Alia that the couple hasn’t shared. “Once the ceremony is done, everybody starts coming to congratulate the couple so what we do is make sure they are together for some time. In Kiara and Siddharth’s case especially, we didn’t tell them what to do, we just asked them to step aside and gave them a moment. Usually, there’s years of weight and these moments come naturally once it lifts,” says Sharma.
Despite the frenzy that built around the wedding and the anticipation of millions awaiting the pictures, Sharma finds it all falls away when one’s eye is looking through a lens, making a high-profile wedding feel just as special as any other. “When you’re shooting, your brain will not even process the fact that you’re shooting celebrities, especially since Rashmika and Vijay were open to suggestions. We were not made to feel like it was a celebrity wedding – it was very organic, authentic one, focussed on moments with family,” he says.