Some couples merge their traditions into a single hybrid ceremony, folding one culture quietly into the other so nobody has to think too hard about it. Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda, married in Udaipur in February, did the opposite. They held two full weddings, back to back, on the same day.
The morning belonged to Vijay's Telugu heritage — Vedic scripture, astrological timing, the choreography of a Hindu ceremony centuries in the making. By sunset, the day had shifted entirely into a Kodava ceremony honouring Rashmika's ancestry from Coorg: a tradition built less on elaborate ritual and more on clan blessing, martial pride, and communal witness. Reporting on the day noted the point plainly — this wasn't about blending two cultures into something smoother. It was about letting both stand in full, unedited, side by side.
The details in between were their own kind of statement. Guests moved from an elaborate Indian breakfast through a Japanese-themed formal dinner, with banana-leaf meals and coconut water woven in as a nod to South Indian tradition. The bride wore eleven separate pieces of gold temple jewellery. Nothing about the day suggested compromise. Everything suggested addition.
We find this quietly instructive. There's a pressure, when you're building a wedding — or a wardrobe, or a brand — to smooth two inheritances into one palatable thing. A dress that's "a bit bridal, a bit modern." A ceremony that's "a bit of both families." But the most memorable version is rarely the blend. It's the one that has the confidence to let each half be fully itself, and trusts the day to hold both without flattening either.
That's the version of heritage we keep returning to in our own work — vintage lace next to a modern cut, the domestic sitting right beside the sensual, without either one apologising for the other. VIROSH just proved it plays just as well at the scale of a national news story as it does in a single seam.
— The DEJJEM Archive