For Indians, wedding is the only ‘it.’ Beautiful, colourful outfits picked with the sole mission of stuffing as much as yummilicious food as possible kyunki kya pata…kal ho na ho, relatives across the world who you probably assumed to be dead all these years joining the baarat, lots of naach-gaana and tons of taam-jhaam aka show-shaa! So when romantic emblems Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone invited us mere mortals to their lavish and obviously extravagant wedding at Lake Como (Google karlo ye bhi), our vanilla lives had hit a new high. Breaking free from the usual low budget ceremonies would be a fresh change of actual ‘big, fat’ Indian wedding, we thought. Hello? This was no ordinary wedding okay. “Bajirao ne Mastani se mohabbat ki hai, aiyaashi nahi,” thanks to Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Seconds after the announcement on October 21, 2018 followed hysteria (trust us we scouted for the best word from the dictionary befitting the reaction) across fan pages, fellow industry friends and the fourth estate which was news itself. Twitter handles changed from ‘Ranveerians’ to #Ladkewale, while sissie Anisha gave a shout out to #Ladkiwale, Katrina Kaif quipped she was waiting on the invitation while Farah Khan flashed her hatke gift to the couple on Instagram a day before the nuptials.

DeepVeer may have stolen the thunder of what probably could have been the unearthing of another scam in the country with their coordinated travel looks for Italy (the jet was not Rafale we were told). Elections in Chhattisgarh have taken place but exit polls are a strict no-no, Yogi Adityanath is busy renaming cities as we wondered if he’d attack the trending hashtags on social media too. However, the panel was too occupied to dig into the meaning of the colour ‘palette’ of Deepika and Ranveer’s wedding looks than discuss or lest throw accusations or footwear at each other on national television. So what? That’s what the celebrity wedding dope hungry janta aka nation wanted to know!

The FIRST, VIRAL and JUST IN pictures practically had the reporters (read spies) balancing in a boat from a faraway location while Ranveer and Co. danced to their hearts content on their way to the venue. But hey, we saw the lush green hills surrounding the place haan. However, the pixelated pictures (blame the tight security) double up as meme fodder because Ranveer’s father Jugjeet Singh Bhavnani almost looked like Shekhar Suman. Bet several stars went like – “And we weren’t invited?”

[caption id="attachment_166959" align="aligncenter" width="1080"] Ritika Bhavnani at Ranveer Deepika wedding[/caption]

In all probability, the nation had fallen in love with this marriage of two superstars from the film fraternity. Sabyasachi flaunted his ‘top to toe’ bride and groom, Deepika’s bridal blush, deep digging dimples while Ranveer’s suaveness and ‘I want to wear DP’s lehenga’ jokes swept over every other information that demanded our attention as news channels had to split screen with every ‘breaking’ picture surfacing. The shaky cameras recorded footage that had bold and big exclusive written all over them – TRPs, bruh. After all, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma had already fooled us and this wasn’t to be missed in any case.

Truth be told, Ranveer’s and Deepika’s was no wedding. It was a phenomenon. Beyond the holy matrimony was a madness and craze that can translate into a major case of FOMO. What had all of this had anything to do with anyone at all? Because the constant updating of feeds around 6 pm was far more curious than board exam results. But those who couldn’t make it in time, all is not done yet. A repeat of the Italian outing will be served with two rendezvous in the form of receptions - one in Bangalore and one in Mumbai. See you then!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POqfE-AT1Ys