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Wedding season is in full swing in Bollywood and the latest celebs to tie the knot are Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra who married in a grand wedding at the Suryagarh Hotel in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. The much-hyped wedding was on everyone’s radar, including ours, as it featured a who’s who of wedding guests, such as Juhi Chawla, Shahid and Mira Kapoor and, of course, Karan Johar.

Malhotra and Advani married on Tuesday and shared pictures from their wedding the same night. Their joint caption featured their dialogue from film Shershaah — “Ab humari permanent booking hogayi hai [Now we’ve been booked permanently]”. They both wrote that they seek blessings and love from their fans on their journey ahead.

We had heard that the couple would be wearing silver clothes — the Indian media got the misinformation from a waiter at the ceremony — but their actual outfits blew us away in the best way possible.

Here are some cues to take from their grand wedding:

Pastels are in

We saw Athiya Shetty wear a dusty pink lehenga at her wedding and Advani wore a similar colour, dubbed by the designer “empress rose”. It seems like Bollywood’s leading ladies are done with traditional red and gold outfits and are creating new traditions with their pastel wedding outfits. In our opinion, this is one trend that is changing for the better.

The bride wore a customised Manish Malhotra dusty-pink ensemble with marodi and zardozi embellishments in both silver and gold as well as real swarvoski crystals. The lehenga had the designer’s signature linear sequins and embellishments. We wonder if the bottom featured a chunky border, but will be left wondering until we see full photos of the outfit.

The designer said in an Instagram post that the lehenga features “intricate embroidery detailing of the roman architecture, inspired by the special love the newlyweds share for the city of domes”. We didn’t really see that reflected in the outfit, however.

She wore a matching net dupatta with scallops on the hem that featured a complementary dark pink embellished border and scattered marodi and zardozi work.

The groom wore a gold-beige hued sherwani from the same designer that had similar zardozi and marodi embroidery as the bride but in gold, ivory and silver hues. He wore a matching stole around his neck that featured hexagon-shaped embroidery with the same embellishments as his sherwani. The groom seems to be wearing slim-fit beige pants that matched the base colour of the sherwani.

A pop of colour in jewellery

When a bride wears silver and gold outfit, you expect her to wear a chunky statement polki set, as seen on Shetty, Alia Bhatt, Katrina Kaif and a host of other Indian brides. But Advani experimented with her jewellery and it paid off. The emeralds were exactly the pop of colour she needed to make her look shine.

Advani wore a chunky diamond necklace that had three tiers of diamonds and rectangle-shaped emeralds placed in between each one of them — another Manish Malhotra creation. Her earrings, unlike other, more traditional brides, were oversized studs of the same diamond and emerald design as her necklace. The bride wore a diamond teeka that, unlike rest of her jewellery, did not have any emerald elements.

The designer described her “exclusive set” being composed of “ultra-fine handcut diamonds crafted with rare Zambian emeralds”.

She wore two matching diamond and emerald bangles on each hand and a diamond hathpool, also called a panjagla — a bracelet with a string attached to a ring. Unlike most brides who wear traditional red churas — red and white wedding bangles — Advani wore light pink and ivory churas that went very well with her outfit.

The appearance of her diamond engagement ring also caught our eye for its stunning simplicity.

Sidharth, on the other hand, wore a long traditional gold polki necklace with a matching teardrop shaped ring on his index finger. He also wore a traditional Rajasthani turban that was complemented by a gold polki kalangi that had a white feather on top. He opted for a medium gold engagement band for himself that he sported in the photos shared online.

Customised bangles for some extra glam

Indian brides are known to wear special bangles called kaleeras — they distinctively feature long gold tassels — on each wrist. The brides are often expected to customise their kaleeras. We saw Kaif with customised kaleeras by Mrinalini Chandra that featured bespoke bird charms, custom messages by the bride herself, and a few words from the Bible.

Advani also customised her kaleeras with special messages symbolising the couple’s love story. Chandra posted a video of the kaleeras that featured a lot of personalisation. We spotted Advani and Sidharth’s initials, KS, a monkey, a map of Rome and two charms of Malhotra’s late dog Oscar. Some also featured an envelope shaped charm at the end.

No makeup makeup is in

After months of seeing Bollywood brides, we can conclusively say this — out with the heavy eye makeup and in with the no makeup makeup. And we’re absolutely here for it. It’s about time we get rid of the idea that a full face of makeup is the only look for a bride.

Brides, please take notes from Advani who wore a glossy lip with a dewy skin-finish base and very little eyeshadow for her big day.

Advani’s makeup was done by Lekha Gupta who has worked with the actor in the past. She gave the bride bronzy skin with a slightly peach glossy lip and bronzy eyes that had the slightest bit of rose-gold foil eyeshadow in the middle. She ditched the eyeliner and had the exaggerated false lashes for her look.

Bollywood brides love their drapers

This is a bit of a culture shock to us as Pakistanis. We first heard of draper Dolly Jain when Kaif got married to Vicky Kaushal in a grand Rajasthani wedding. We learned that Jain is a celebrity favourite and that Indian brides — particularly Bollywood brides — love their outfit drapers. The draper will handle draping their lehenga, dupatta or sari.

Jain is from Kolkata and holds a world record in draping a sari in 18.5 seconds. So of course she was at hand to drape Advani’s bridal outfit. In an Instagram story, she congratulated “Mr and Mrs Malhotra” and said that it was “wonderful” to be a part of their special day.

Jain’s clientele includes A-list celebrities and top designers. She has also been teaching the world about drapery via Instagram and charges between INR 35,000 and INR 200,000 for different kinds of drapery. She can drape in 325 ways and holds a world record for that as well.