About
You are cordially invited…
Our decision to be married came as no surprise, from day one everything felt “purrfect”. Like Batman and Catwoman, we were shockingly alike, yet complete opposites in important ways. Ways that create a beautiful balance of open-minded goofiness; together we tackle the big problems from different angles while whimsically blowing past the little things in life, striving to reach our goals together. We complete each other, there is no doubt about it. Though there were many years of not knowing of the other’s existence, we cannot begin to comprehend a life without our better half.
So how did we know we were right for each other? How did things reach the point of us promising a lifetime together? Amazingly it was not anything most people would find significant, but to us it was things that meant the world.
The thing that initially piqued our interest was our love for everything Batman, admittedly my fandom cast a bit of a shadow over Justin’s, but he loved it. Our early dates coincided with the release of the Batman and Catwoman wedding comic, at Fan Expo Vancouver we joked at the time that it must be a sign and that we should buy the comic, but I settled on grabbing two armfuls of batman comics instead. Justin’s jaw dropped with shock and amusement as I handed him the comics to carry for the day while we continued to nerd out and really get in touch with each other’s goofy side.
Image from Den of Geek
From that day, our love continued to grow, and we had our share of ups and downs, but they always ended with smiles and laughter. No matter how heated things got, we knew it would never be more than our love could handle. Communication and compromise without ever needing to sacrifice parts of ourselves always settled our downs with bigger ups; an important lesson to keep to heart when you are planning to spend the rest of your lives together.
We knew we had it all, we could take on the world together. Nothing would steer us off our path and keep us from our goals. We were sure that if we had nothing, we would always have each other. We decided to get married, knowing the happiest day of our lives would lead to even happier days down the road. And what better way to do it than theming the celebration around the initial spark, a Batman and Catwoman wedding!
Our initial intention was to have a grand wedding featuring our 3 loves – food, dogs, and of course Batman! However no matter how extensive a plan is, there must always be a plan B. Just as our crime-fighting heroes we were faced with a rough road In achieving a dream wedding when COVID brought about a standstill and uncertainty.
Suddenly it was like we flipped back to the beginning of the comic book, with Batman and Catwoman planning out their court marriage. Though for a brief moment, it felt as if everything we were working towards had crumbled, we put everything in perspective and realized that a wedding with all the bells and whistles, though amazing, don’t matter in the long run. We had each other and a COVID court marriage in our Batman onesies would be just as magical. We were fortunate enough to be able to relocate to a Gurdwara for the wedding ceremony and get to splurge a bit more on ourselves to achieve the “purrfect batrimony.”
Pravin and Ameeta at Jewellery Galleria who passionately crafted the perfect symbol of our eternal love. One-of-a-kind rings fit for any Batman fan sit perfectly around our fingers. Justin’s a rugged white gold ring with a sandblasted finish and black diamonds inset into the shape of the Bat logo. Mine, a more extravagant floating white diamond ring, complemented by smaller white diamonds to bring out the perfection of the center stone and lined with black diamonds; truly a ring Catwoman would snatch up in a heartbeat.
With our rings, we needed to suit up for the photos. For all of our outfits, we turned to Custumise, who pushed through all the challenges of COVID and delivered us nothing but timely quality, elegance and comfort.
For our first photoshoot at the Vancouver Art Gallery with our amazing natural light photographer Mathias Fast, Custumise replicated Joelle Jones’ Catwoman bridal dress, with a bit of a twist to suit my taste. Justin donned a tuxedo from Debonair Formalwear, where the helpful staff had him suited up and ready to go in no time. Mathias really brought to life the dark atmosphere of Gotham city with clever use of the Gallery’s architecture and lighting.
Our second shoot took place at Hycroft Manor – where part of the Catwoman movie was shot. With our meticulous fine art photographer Preet Reyat. With Preet, we felt like stars. A professional photoshoot with a focus on lighting and ensuring every small detail was perfect. Preet made sure every detail in our suits popped, producing surreal photos.
For the wedding outfits we went a traditional route while incorporating Batman themes with a subtlety the dark knight himself would appreciate. Custumise crafted Justin’s cream achkan with an elegantly hand embroidered gold Bat logo spanning across his chest and back, completing his look with an oxblood-colored shawl embroidered with a gold chevron border to match the bottom of the bridal lengha. Along with the extra touch of Batman crafted into Justin’s footwear made by Rohan Arora, Justin was ready.
My lengha, also designed by Customise, was an Oxblood-coloured silk base, heavily embellished in hand-embroidery inspired by plate armor. Fit for royalty and complemented with a double dupatta. The Batman subtlety was included in my bridal Jewellery designed by Hookum Design Studio. Benita created a 3-layer necklace along, the top and bottom layer were kundan and gold and sitting in the middle was a maroon beaded necklace with a Swarovski crystal cat eye in the center. The subtleties lay in the links of the tikka, each designed as the batman logo leading down to another Swarovski cat eye sitting at the forehead. A matching passa, jhumki style earrings and naath completed the set, along with footwear, also designed by Rohan, had me dressed head to toe.
But what is a bride without mehndi. To tie everything together, Iti worked a tireless 12 hours to express my loves through her art. My left arm included Justin’s favorite song lyrics and a portrait of a corgi doggy-paddling in space towards an ice cream cone. On my right were my favorite song lyrics and a slice of pizza. My palms included the masks of Batman and Catwoman. And as per tradition, my husband’s name was included in the details. Iti further elevated the mehndi by using alta and gold foil.
Weddings are never easy, and this year threw in some extra hurdles. We have no regrets going through with a COVID wedding, the intimacy of a small wedding really made things so much better. Through all the stress and commotion, everything, as it often is with weddings, was “purrfect”. We are deeply thankful to our vendors for stretching their flexibility to their limits and making our wedding better than we would have ever hoped for.
We got married and are living happily ever after!