Sivakami & Thilak

It’s your wedding day, and you want everything to go as smooth as possible. Chances are, you are bound to face some obstacles and last minute stress for various things not going as planned – specifically if they are out of your control. Insert Sivakami & Thilak: a couple who smiled and laughed away the unexpected events of their wedding day. At the end of it all, they have each other – and that’s what really matters.

Thilak and I met during our undergrad years. While we went to different schools, we had a mutual friend who set up a study session, and that’s how we met. Our story wasn’t the most typical or romantic, but we both knew we would have something special together from the first few moments. We’re both originally from Scarborough, but Thilak moved to Markham after high school. He would actually come around my high school to visit his buddies there, some of which were my friends too. Even though we never met each other back then, it was through one of these friends from high school that we ended up meeting.

We got married on June 5^th, 2016. Organizing the wedding was not as bad as I expected because we both have a great support system with our family and friends. I’m the youngest of 5 girls so my family has a lot of experience with weddings. Thilak has a younger brother, a sister, and a lot of cousins – so we had our work cut out for us. The real test, was our actual wedding day. Thilak went to sleep around the time that I woke up to get my hair and makeup done. He called me to say goodnight and that we would see each other soon. The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of people and camera flashes – and by the time I made it to the hall, I didn’t even realize how much time had passed. I had a moment while waiting in the bridal suite where I realized I was actually getting married – but before I could start panicking, the power went out in our venue.

Then it was one thing after another going sideways, but we really couldn’t do anything to stop or control it. Once I had made my first entrance, I sat down beside Thilak, and the nerves were starting to creep back. I noticed that Thilak was kind of just hanging out, when I was expecting him to be all tired and grumpy. He turned to me and asked if I noticed anything about our manavarai. I looked up and noticed.. it was not the one the hall was supposed to provide. We were supposed to be sitting under a simple gold and red manavarai, but instead, we were sitting under a super traditional cardboard one, similar to the ones our parents had for their weddings. We just looked at each other and started laughing. There was nothing else we could do at that moment.

We started telling each other about all the things that were going wrong, and we just kept laughing. We heard a lot of comments later about how nice it was to see a couple having so much fun up on the manavarai, but little did they know were laughing because there was literally nothing else we could do at the time. I could make a list of things that had gone wrong, but if everything had gone perfectly, then we wouldn’t have any funny stories to share from our wedding. Our guests had only nice things to say, especially about the food. Our photographers and videographers captured the most beautiful moments of the day and that’s all that really matters in the end.

Since we moved out to Oshawa, we’re much farther from our families than we’ve ever been, and that really made us grow stronger together. We have a fur baby, Zelda, and she keeps us sane, even on our worst days. we bought her together while we were still dating, so it’s nice for us 3 to finally be under the same roof. We recently started a side gig making baked goods! We’re enjoying working together on this project a lot and hope to make it grow into something bigger. (Instagram: @pleatstreats)

Working together in the kitchen, whether it’s for a cake order or just making a meal together is a lot of fun. I think that’s one thing most people who know us will agree on: individually and as a couple, we love having fun. And we’re very lucky we can have fun with each other.