Suren and Pooja got married yesterday.  It was an epic occasion, that started with their wedding ceremony at the Hindu temple in Lenasia South and ended with a reception at the Sandton Sun.

Suren and Pooja contacted me a few months ago at work, after someone in the office had told them that I do photography. I’ve been really looking forward to the wedding since then. It was the first time I’d taken photos in a temple… and then as the plans started unfolding I got more and more excited about it.
You see, Pooja was in the dark about part of the day. She thought we were going to do their creative shoot in Newtown… after she’d got her hair and make-up redone and she was in her evening outfit. Well, that was not to be. Suren’s friend had contacted him a few weeks ago, and offered the use of a helicopter to transport them from Lenasia to Sandton. So, between Suren, Shaun, the MC Carla and myself, the plans were changed.

As a surprise for Pooja, the helicopter arrived in the veld close to the lunch venue, and Shaun and his co-pilot Wessel, flew them and me to the top of a mountain in the Magaliesburg for their creative shoot. And then it zooted us to Sandton, where we were met by a driver from the hotel who took us to Sandton Sun for a quick change before the evening reception.

My second shooter for the day was Alana Meyer, who had the important job of capturing the heli leaving Lenasia with us on board.

But first, I need to show you the photos from the 2 hour ceremony at the most incredible temple.

I love the look that I caught Suren and Pooja sharing as they waited outside the temple.

Considering Joburg is experiencing a heatwave at the moment, the fire made the temple unbearably hot, and Suren must’ve been baking in his velvet jacket.

I took this photo while Suren and Pooja were circling the fire

Suren had to put toe rings on her feet

and then they exchanged their garlands…

And they played some kind of cute fishing game with the guru’s ruby ring…

… before exchanging rings

And then after a stunningly delicious lunch, it was time for the helicopter to arrive, and Pooja was still none the wiser.  She did however start asking a few questions when Suren was waiting outside with his friends… but he still didn’t say a word.  And it was only after the helicopter really came close that she realised something was happening.  But it took quite some time before she realised what was going to happen… and in fact, how many people kept it a secret from her.

LOVED that we even got flight tickets!

As soon as we were up in the air, Pooja started taking photos and BBM’ing her friends

and after about 20 minutes, we landed on top of the mountain…

It was such an incredible experience and so special for me too… a helicopter ride to take photos of a city was on my Bucket List… so I got to tick something off in the process

We landed at Inanda on the edge of the polo field, and the driver came up in his big black Merc with tinted windows to take us to the hotel.  It was so funny to watch the other people at Inanda trying to peer in the windows to see who had arrived in such style!!

As soon as we got back to Sandton Sun, Carla whisked Pooja off to the hair salon to have her hair done for the evening

There are a few more images from the wedding and the reception on Facebook, and if you were a guest at the wedding, you can tag yourselves in the images there when you “like” the page