A big weekend for Bollywood weddings
Two big Bollywood stars got married this weekend, marking the height of wedding season.
Actress Priyanka Chopra and American singer Nick Jonas hosted a grand concert Sunday for their star-studded wedding guests as the couple tied the knot at a majestic Indian palace.
Chopra, 36, and Jonas, 26, performed an elaborate Indian music and dance routine as their friends and family cheered along at the Umaid Bhawan Palace in the western Indian city of Jodhpur. The newly-married couple was photographed at the airport on Monday leaving India’s fabled “Blue City” after the three-day wedding festivities.
The duo, who married in a Christian ceremony Saturday night, tied the knot in a traditional Hindu ceremony Sunday, the culmination of the wedding celebration that featured cricket matches and Bollywood songs.
Dubbed India’s “wedding of the year,” the festivities commenced with a traditional Indian mehndi (henna) ceremony.
The bride wore vibrant
Indian colors while Jonas was dressed in an elaborately From seasoned Irish author Denyse Woods comes “Of Sea and Sand,” a novel about the power of losing oneself to the pressures of the world and making gains in unexpected places and ways. Woods’ sixth novel is set in Muscat, Oman, and its surrounding areas. The sultanate’s history and geologically diverse landscape are presented through the experiences of expatriates who call the country their home.
Woods first introduces her readers to Gabriel, who arrives in Muscat in 1982. He is fleeing his home in Cork, Ireland, from familial trouble and has found refuge with his sister who lives in Oman. With family ties strained, Gabriel attempts to find solace in the city by the sea, where the March heat beats down on his head as does his guilt. Attempting to forget his past,
Gabriel immerses himself in Oman – its deserts, mountains, sea, and people. And while there, he meets a woman, someone only he can see but no one else can.
Meanwhile, Thea is in Iraq, amid the Iran-Iraq war, working as a secretary with an Irish company. In need of adventure and experience, the young woman makes Baghdad her home. It is the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, the 8th-century architecture of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the Al-Tar Caves that keep her there despite the war. But an event that is out of Thea’s control forces her to return to Cork.
More than 25 years later, Gabriel and Thea meet in Muscat, and while they seem familiar to each other, they have never met before.
Woods’ novel is full of mystery, embroidered kurta (tunic).
That ceremony was capped off with a vibrant fireworks show, which attracted some criticism online as Chopra is a vocal advocate for improving India’s air pollution.
Next, a sangeet performance featured ornate set changes and dozens of performers, which the “Quantico” star described as a “fierce song and dance competition” between the two families.
“And what a performance it was. Each family telling our stories through song and dance, filled with lots of laughter and love,” she wrote on Instagram Sunday.
Jonas’ brother Joe Jonas and his fiancée, British actress and “Game of Thrones” star Sophie Turner, attended the wedding festivities.
US fashion designer Ralph Lauren designed the couple’s wedding trousseau for the Christian ceremony as well as outfits for the guests. “Ralph Lauren is honored to have dressed the couple as well as the members of their wedding party,” the designer posted on Twitter on Saturday.
Meanwhile, another
Indian actress to get married this weekend was Deepika Padukone, who saved her most glamorous wedding look yet for her Mumbai reception on Saturday night. Padukone stunned in a blood-red, embellished gown with a sweeping train and a veil, created by Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad.
Her husband Ranveer Singh looked dapper in a black tuxedo, styled by Rohit Gandhi and
Rahul Khanna.
Murad took to his Instagram page to congratulate the couple.
“Deepika Padukone looks absolutely stunning in her wedding reception in a Zuhair Murad Custom Couture red gown. Our warmest congratulations to the lovely bride,” his post said.
The Bollywood power couple had a destination wedding on Nov. 15 at Lake Como, Italy, after which they embarked on a series of post-wedding parties in India. accompanied by the fascinating ethos, history and geography of the Middle East. She allows her readers to journey through Oman as her characters do, from Old Muscat, with its narrow streets and small shops, to the 16th-century Muscat forts built during the time of the Portuguese, to the Hajar mountain range, and Tethyan ophiolites.
Woods cleverly uses the uniquely varied landscape to add to the layers of her characters and their lives. Where there is beauty enough to make someone fall in love with Oman, there are also flash floods and dangerous desert routes that can cause harm, and sometimes death, a reminder that unpredictability is never far behind her characters.
Woods creates an atmosphere of uncertainty but also uses Oman, its culture, its language and its diverse population to make her story feel whole. Ultimately, the novel is about life and its ups and downs, its losses and gains, and the erratic paths it can take someone on, all that can end up making or breaking a person.