Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma’s fairytale wedding was designed by a Lucknow girl

Devika Narain, a Lucknow girl, designed the hush-hush wedding of Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma. The wedding took place on Monday in Tuscany, Italy.

India cricket captain Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma’s much talked about wedding ceremony has a Lucknow connection. Devika Narain, a city girl, designed the wedding at Borgo Finocchieto in Buonconvento, a village in Italy’s Siena. Her husband Joseph Radhik is the designated photographer for the wedding.

Devika Narain’s father Pradeep, said it was Devika’s wedding planning company -- Devika Narain and Company that designed Kohli and Sharma’s wedding. “We’ve been keeping a secret for a couple of months now and all of it has come to life today, in a beautiful Tuscan village, where Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma official got married,” said a Facebook post on Devika’s company’s profile.

The past few weeks have been absolutely surreal and as we sit typing this out, it's sort of settling in! Four months of keeping a secret, hiding even from our own team, the secret recces, midnight meetings, vague conversations, and sleepless nights have finally manifested into this grand moment. Thank you Anuskha and Virat, for making us part of your family and trusting us to pull off something of this magnitude. You believed in us, even on those sleepless nights that we didn't! A huge shout out to everyone who stood with us through this and created magic all along the way - @devikanarainandcompany (for transforming our mad plans into magic!), @storiesbyjosephradhik (for making everything and everyone look so damn good!), @theweddingfilmer (for making this weekend eternal for all of us! ), @ritudalmia (for bringing India to Italy!), @supertuscanweddingplanners (for being an extension of us in Tuscany). And above all of it, to our own incredible team, for being the pillars behind us! @rriddhittalwalkar @pragati_malhotra you guys rock 🤙💥 This is extra extra special ❤️ #weddingplanning #weddingproduction #shaadisquad #virushka

A post shared by Shaadi Squad (@shaadisquad) on Dec 11, 2017 at 8:21am PST

She posted on her company’s Facebook account, “It’s finally all settling in, the cold is seeping back in and at this point I’m an odd mix of relief and immense excitement. We’ve been keeping a secret for a couple of months now and all of it has come to life today, in a beautiful tuscan village, where Virat Kohli and AnushkaSharma official got married. We’re overwhelmed to have been chosen to be a part of such a special day. It means a lot to us to have had their trust, not just in keeping all of this a secret but to create a setting for their big day! Congratulations and thank you! #virushka.”

“We’re overwhelmed to have been chosen to be a part of such a special day. It means a lot to us to have had their trust, not just in keeping all of this a secret but to create a setting for their big day!”

Keeping it a secret

Devika’s family said she kept her assignment a secret. They found out about the wedding with the rest of the world on Monday evening, even though she made frequent trips to Italy.

“In recent past Devika made frequent trips to Italy. But, she never disclosed it to us. Sometimes she said she was moving to Rome, sometimes to Paris. It was only on Monday evening, when she broke the news to her grandmother confirming that they designed the grand wedding that we came to know about it,” said Pradeep, a local promoter of SPIC MACAY, an organisation that promotes Indian culture, arts and music among the youth.

Devika’s entry into the field of wedding planning industry was by chance, her father said. Her first aspiration was to be a journalist.

“After completing her schooling from Loreto Convent Intermediate College, Lucknow in 2006, she went to Lady Shri Ram College and did English honours,” he said.

But she changed her mind and joined the country’s most prominent wedding planning company where she worked for three years before setting up her own business around four years back.

‘Devika Narain and Company was born on the dining table of a small rented apartment with simple goal of creating spaces that were personal and uniquely Indian’— reads the intro of Devika’s company on the website.

She soon married Radhik, an award winning photographer. “In fact, he is also the first Indian photographer to be signed as Sony’s global brand ambassador,” he added.

Other than the Virushka wedding, as it is being called, Devika planned other celebrity marriages that includes Indian cricketers Robin Venu Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik and others.