Planning & décor
Planning, décor and a calm wedding morning
Catering is where every family starts with us. These are the pieces they hand over next – take one, take three, or give us the whole run-sheet and sit down with your guests.
Mandap & stage décor
Built to the priest’s requirements, not just the photographer’s
A mandap is a ritual structure before it is a backdrop. Ours are built to your priest’s specification – four pillars, east-facing wherever the venue’s geometry allows, with room for both sets of parents and a fire-safe homam setup that the venue has signed off in writing before the day, not negotiated in a corridor during the Gauri puja.
The flowers are the part guests touch. Fresh marigold and jasmine arrive twice a week, and the mandap garlands, the entrance toran and the couple’s jaimala garlands come from the same batch, so the whole room agrees with itself. Kanjeevaram-inspired drapes, brass kalash and diya stands, and a talambralu station positioned where the rice can fly without landing in the payasam.
For half-saree functions and receptions we build lighter – a stage, a backdrop worth a hundred photographs, and a sweets table styled to the outfit colours.
Venue liaison
The questions venues never hear until it’s too late
Most London venues have never hosted a homam, never powered a six-foot dosa tawa, and never planned for four hundred guests arriving at nine in the morning. We ask the awkward questions before you sign – free of charge – so the contract already covers what your wedding actually needs.
That means: power capacity for live counters, open-flame permissions for the homam and diyas, kitchen access and cooking rules for outside caterers, sound limits for the dhol, floor protection for the mandap build, parking for the baraat, and what time the venue genuinely lets us in – not what time the brochure says.
We are approved caterers at several halls across north-west and south London already. If your venue is new to us, we visit, walk it with their events team, and hand you a one-page summary of what is agreed. Venues thank us for it almost as often as families do.
Photography & film coordination
Crews who know what happens next
The jeelakarra-bellam lasts a few seconds and does not repeat. A photographer who has to ask “what happens next?” has already missed it. We coordinate photographers and film crews who have shot Telugu weddings for years – they are in position before the moment, at the mangalasnanam, the kashi yatra, the three knots, the talambralu.
Bring your own photographer if you have one; we still make their day easier. They get the same ritual run-sheet our kitchen works from, timed to the priest’s schedule, plus a named contact on our crew. Nobody discovers the muhurtham moved twenty minutes by hearing the conch.
For families abroad we arrange a same-night highlights clip – grandparents in Hyderabad watch the talambralu before they sleep.
Priest & muhurtham coordination
The schedule the whole day answers to
Everything at a Telugu wedding waits on the muhurtham – including us. If your family priest is flying in from Vijayawada, we coordinate his requirements before he lands. If you need a priest, we introduce Telugu-speaking purohits in London we have stood beside at hundreds of ceremonies, for everything from a barasala to a full pelli with homam.
Then there is the puja list. Talambralu rice, turmeric and kumkuma, betel leaves and nuts, the kalash, coconuts, sacred thread, camphor, the jeelakarra and bellam themselves – we prepare the complete samagri, laid out and labelled at the mandap before the priest arrives. One thing fewer for your amma to carry through security at Heathrow.
When the muhurtham falls at an unsociable hour – and the good ones often do – our schedule bends around it. We have served a full bhojanam at three in the morning. The dal was still hot.
Guest logistics
Four hundred people, three postcodes, one timetable
A Telugu wedding guest list is a small airline operation: grandparents landing from Hyderabad, cousins driving down from Leicester, a coach of family friends from Ilford, and one uncle who will not use a satnav on principle. We plan for all of them.
We block-book hotel rooms near the venue at negotiated rates, arrange coaches and minibuses between hotel and hall, schedule airport pickups for elders flying in, and produce a guest information sheet – in English and Telugu – with timings, addresses and a phone number that a human being actually answers.
On the day, our crew tracks arrivals against the seating plan, keeps the elders’ tables served first, and quietly feeds the coach drivers too – because your family would have, and we work for your family.
Day-of management
One named person. One run-sheet. Zero jobs for your family.
This is the service families thank us for at the appagintalu. One named event manager – usually the same person who hosted your tasting – owns the run-sheet from mangalasnanam to the last paan. Vendors call them, the venue calls them, the priest’s assistant calls them. Nobody calls you.
They arrive with the crew four hours before service, walk the venue against the checklist, and then spend the day being two steps ahead: the mic that will be needed for the lagna patrika reading is already on the mandap; the elders’ table knows the bhojanam order; the sparkler exit is lined up while the dance floor is still full.
When it rains an hour before the garden dosa counter opens – it has – the station moves, the power re-runs, and the first ghee roast still comes off the tawa on time. That is the whole job: you find out about problems after they have stopped being problems, or never.
How we work
From first call to the last laddu
Five steps. You will always know what happens next, and there is a named person on the phone at every one of them.
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Tell us the date
Send the enquiry form or WhatsApp us the muhurtham date and rough guest count. We reply within one working day with availability and a starting price.
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Taste the food
Come to our Wembley kitchen with up to six family members. Twelve dishes on the table, including both grandmothers’ non-negotiables. Tastings are £95, refunded when you book.
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Lock the menu & services
We write up the final menu, counters, décor and timings against the ritual schedule and send one clear quote. 25% deposit holds the date; nothing else to pay until the month before.
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Confirm final numbers
Fourteen days out we confirm guest numbers, dietary lists and the venue run-sheet. Add up to 10% more guests as late as five days before – RSVPs are what they are.
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Event day
Our crew arrives four hours before service. The event manager who did your tasting is in the room until the paan cart closes. You sit with your guests – that is the whole point.