Neil Nitin Mukesh's wedding invitation
Neil Nitin Mukesh’s wedding invitation

Neil Nitin Mukesh took everyone by surprise when he announced his engagement to Rukmini Sahay some time last year. The couple’s wedding festivities will be held in Udaipur between 7th and 9th of February, and ahead of that, photos of their wedding invitation have started to do the rounds online.

Neil Nitin Mukesh's wedding invitation
Neil Nitin Mukesh’s wedding invitation

Interestingly, the invitation is designed like a coffee table book, with each page being a new “chapter” – and each function has a foreword that’s a paraphrase of the legendary Mukesh‘s songs.

We wanted the invite to be very personal and hence we decided to go with a compilation of memories. Everything starts and ends with Mukesh in our upbringing and the entire conceptualization for the invite came from my father and my mother. It is like a series of love ballads springing to life and I’ve already received so many calls from well-wishers telling me how much they have loved the thought behind the invite.

Designer Ravish Kumar
Designer Ravish Kapoor

The invitation was designed by Ravish Kapoor, who says:

When Neil approached us to do the card, he wanted us to create an invitation that was regal and timeless and had a vintage quality to it. He wanted also to acknowledge his own legendary past and pay homage to his grandfather and the influence it had not only on Neil but how his songs have influenced so many people, his songs are the songs of romance, the songs of love, timeless to this day. We wanted to create something the represented these feelings, something that had a keepsake quality to it, that looked personal and like his Grandfathers music was timeless. So we created a vintage style photo album. In place of the pictures we framed the functions using a boarder reminiscent of they way old wedding photos would be displayed in a keepsake album. Dividing the album (invitation) pages are sheets of butter paper with quotes from the songs sung by his grandfather, his most famous ones singing about the timelessness of love, which we felt was perfect to set the stage for Neil and Rukmini’s forthcoming marriage. The invitation was created using texture brown paper which had been giving a leatherette effect. The “Album” and the box holding it is lined with suede and the invitation leaflets are printed using gold and bronze foil on antique aged paper. The monogram was created using the initials N and R and are designed to be a mirror of each other. The peacocks flank either side of the crest which in heraldry terms symbolises and personifies grace and dignity, like that of royalty. The card is timeless, just like Mukesh’s songs, and love itself.

The first event on the 7th will be the engagement, while the mehendi and the sangeet will take place on the 8th. And on the 9th, there will be the haldi, chuda chadai and the wedding ceremony followed by a family dinner and a cocktail party. These functions will be attended by around 500 guests – a friends-and-family-only affair, apparently – while a subsequent reception (on the 17th) will be held in Mumbai for the who’s who of Bollywood.