Weddings, Events, Stories, Etc...

Sameer reached the studio a little after ten.

The shutter was open halfway, the morning sun slicing through the narrow entrance and falling across tangled camera wires, tripods, and cardboard boxes filled with old hard drives. The office sat above a tailor shop in one of Gurgaon's local markets. It was squeezed between a dentist’s clinic and a travel agency nobody seemed to visit anymore.

The signboard outside read:

Frame Found Studio

Weddings. Events. Stories.

Inside, the air smelled faintly of dust, chai, and overheated laptops.

Sameer dropped his camera bag near the editing desk and switched on the monitor. The screen lit up with photographs from the previous night’s assignment. It was a three-year-old’s birthday party with a jungle theme.

There were balloons everywhere.And at least forty-seven photographs of crying children.

Sameer sighed.

The glass door creaked open behind him.

“We got another booking.”

Aman walked in, balancing two paper cups of tea and a greasy white packet of samosas tucked under his arm.

Sameer looked up immediately.“Really? Wow. Wait… please don’t tell me it’s another kids’ party. I’m done with the noise. One more Baby Shark performance and I’ll jump into the Yamuna.”

Aman chuckled and placed the tea beside him.“Nope. No kiddie birthday party. This time it’s a wedding.”

Sameer leaned back in his chair dramatically.“Shit. That’s even worse.”

Aman laughed.“You’ve become impossible since your breakup.”

“I was impossible before my breakup, also. Now I’m experienced.”

“Good wedding,” Aman continued, opening his laptop. “Big family. Farmhouse in Chattarpur. Three-day function. Budget is solid.”

Sameer zoomed into a photograph of a child smearing cake on another child’s face.“People spend twenty lakhs to prove they’re happy.”

“Please don’t say this in front of our clients.”

“I don’t say it in front of our clients. I save my honesty for you.”

Aman shook his head.“One day, I’m replacing you with someone cheerful.”

“Find another idiot willing to stand under the sun for ten hours filming people dancing to London Thumakda.”

Aman took a sip of chai.“Can’t. You take good pictures. You’re the best!”

Sameer tried not to smile at that.

For a few moments, the office fell quiet except for the clicking of the mouse and traffic noises drifting up from the market below.

On the wall opposite them hung framed photographs from old weddings. Brides laughing mid-spin. Grandmother’s crying during vidai. A groom kissing his wife’s forehead beneath fireworks.

People loved these photographs. People called them magical.

Sameer knew the truth behind most of them. The bride had been exhausted trying to hold it together, bearing the weight of that miserably heavy lehenga, also having her makeup and hair done hours before the function. The groom had a bursting bladder and couldn’t pee because he had to be seated on the chariot during the barat for endless hours. Someone’s uncle got pissed drunk. Another bua had cried over her jewelry. Someone’s cousin threw up behind the stage. The bride’s parents were jittery and nervous, hoping that everything would go well, and still putting on fake smiles to entertain their guests.

Love looked beautiful in photographs because photographs never captured what happened five minutes later or even five minutes before. 

“By the way,” Aman said casually, “Your mother found another girl for you.”

Sameer groaned immediately.“My mother called you? Again?”

“Yup! She sent me a picture,” Aman grinned. 

“Aman!”

“What? Nice girl. Dentist,” Aman replied. 

“I already spend weekends around marriages. Why are you making me think about my own?” Sameer rolled his eyes. 

Aman smirked, “Bro, one girl cheated on you. Not the entire institution of love.”

Sameer picked up the last samosa from the packet. “Focus on your pregnant wife,” he muttered.

Aman stared at the empty packet.“You ate the last one?”

Sameer took a deliberate bite, “Yes.”

“Heartbreak has made you selfish,” Aman gave him a long stare. 

“Survival instinct.”

Aman threw a tissue at him.

By evening, Sameer was on his balcony at home, cleaning camera lenses while his mother made tea in the kitchen.

“You should at least meet someone,” she called out.

Sameer closed one eye and checked the lens against the light.“Maa, please!”

“I’m not saying get married tomorrow,” his mother added, walking towards the dining table. 

“You’re thinking it very loudly though.”

His father looked up from the newspaper and hid a smile.

“She’s right,” his father continued. “You’re thirty-two.”

“And tired,” his mother interrupted. 

“That’s not an age,” his father said, folding the newspaper.

Sameer sighed a long sigh. 

Eight months ago, he still believed his life was headed somewhere predictable, and five years with Kavita had done that to him. They had discussed apartments, vacations, furniture, and even dog names.

Then one Tuesday evening, Kavita was on the other side of the table in the cafe, looking at Sameer with pity in her eyes, the guilt consuming her, although she knew it was just temporary when she said those appalling words. 

“Sameer… I’ve met someone else.”

Five years reduced to a bill on the table, and cold coffee, neither of them finished.

Since then, weddings have felt less like celebrations and more like theatre productions that everyone desperately wanted to believe in.

“Anyway,” his mother continued, softer now, “just think about it…. Please, Beta.”

Sameer nodded vaguely.

Later that night, unable to sleep, he scrolled through wildlife photographs on his laptop instead.

A kingfisher mid-flight. A fox in Rajasthan. Two deer are standing silently in the morning fog.

He loved photographing animals because they never pretended. Animals never rehearsed, smiled, or staged emotions. You either got the shot or you didn’t. 

The wedding began on a Friday evening.

The farmhouse in Chattarpur looked less like a wedding venue and more like a film set. Strings of fairy lights wrapped around trees, servers rushing across lawns carrying trays of kebabs, and giant LED screens displaying a pre-wedding video of the couple running through mustard fields in coordinated outfits.

Sameer adjusted his camera settings while Aman argued with the DJ about electrical sockets.

“Bhaiya, just give us ten minutes,” Aman said for the fifth time.

The bride was already running late. The groom looked jittery, nervous, and stressed all at once. The makeup artist looked disgusted. The bride’s family seemed burdened by responsibility and couldn’t wait for everything to be over. Even the horses near the entrance somehow looked worried. 

Sameer moved through it all mechanically.

Click.Smile.Wide shot.Family portrait.Retake.Drone shot.Slow-motion entry.

At one point, the bride whispered through clenched teeth:“If one more person tells me to smile naturally, I’ll scream.”

Sameer almost respected her for her honesty.

Hours passed.

Music grew louder. Relatives grew emotional and cranky. Children ran wild near the dessert counter.

And somewhere between photographing the varmala and filming dancing cousins, Sameer noticed the bride’s parents.

The mother stood near the stage, fixing guests’ dupattas, managing jewelry, checking flower arrangements, and making sure everyone had eaten.

The father followed quietly behind her, carrying a water bottle and her phone.

At one point, she sat down for barely thirty seconds near the heaters.

Without saying anything, he bent down and adjusted her shawl properly around her shoulders before stepping back a few steps.

Sameer instinctively lifted his camera. Click

Later, during dinner, the father stopped beside the buffet, picked up a gulab jamun, and placed it on his wife’s plate before someone else finished it.

She didn’t even look surprised, as if this had happened for years.

Another click.

During the pheras, while everyone watched the couple circling the fire, Sameer noticed something else entirely.

The bride’s mother looked exhausted now, emotional in the way mothers become at weddings…  happy and heartbroken all at the same time.

And beside her, her husband wasn’t watching the rituals.

He was watching his wife. Just to make sure she was okay. Just hoping she wouldn’t have tears streaming down her face. 

As if after thirty-three years of togetherness, his first instinct was still, ‘Are you alright? Do you need anything?’

Sameer admired this silent habit of caring. It seeped into him like paint on watercolor paper when the colors bleed and blend into each other. This looked nothing like the love he had stopped believing in. 

“Bhai!”

Aman appeared beside him, holding two plates overloaded with food.

“You’ve been standing here like a depressed flamingo. Eat something.”

Sameer blinked. “What is this?”

“Butter chicken. Mutton seekh. Paneer for decoration.”

They stood near the lawn heaters, eating in silence.

After a moment, Aman nudged him.“You okay? What happened?”

Sameer looked toward the bride’s parents across the lawn.

“I think,” he said slowly, “we photograph the wrong people sometimes.”

Aman frowned.“What?”

“Nothing,” Sameer said quickly. 

The wedding ended past four in the morning.

Back at the studio, Aman fell asleep on the couch almost immediately, one arm hanging off the side while wedding footage transferred slowly onto the system.

Sameer sat alone before the monitor.

The office was quiet except for the hum of the CPU and distant traffic outside.

He began sorting photographs on his laptop.

Bride's entry. Couple portrait. Dance performances. Family pictures.

Suddenly, he paused. There they were again... the bride’s parents. She was laughing as she fixed his crooked pocket square. He was holding her hand as they walked through the crowd. The two shared a cup of soup near the backstage area, away from everyone. She was touching his arm while speaking to distant relatives and friends. He was always making sure his wife was comfortable, that she was okay, that she was in need of nothing. 

Sameer stared at the screen for a long time.

None of these moments had been posed. Nobody had asked for them. And somehow they felt more honest than the entire wedding album.

For the first time in months, Sameer edited photographs slowly with the utmost care. 

Around six in the morning, he created a separate folder. He stared at the blank title box for a second before typing:

For Your Parents

Then he sent it to the bride.

A few minutes later, exhaustion finally pulled at his entire body. 

Sameer leaned back in his chair.

Outside, Gurgaon was beginning to wake again. A faint blue morning settled over the buildings. Milk vans set off, and newspaper boys were up and about. The early morning traffic began to tune in. 

Sameer’s phone buzzed. It was a message from the bride. 

I didn’t even know these moments existed.Mom has been crying, looking at them.Thank you, thank you. Continue at what you do best. 

Sameer read the message twice.

Then quietly, without really thinking about it, he opened the folder of wildlife photographs on his laptop again.

This time, before closing it, he added a new folder beside it.

Weddings.