Inside Chaitanya-Sobhita's wedding: 300 guests, 5 cuisines, no star musicians
Actors Naga Chaitanya and Sobhita Dhulipala recently got married in what the couple described as a "small" and "intimate" ceremony at Hyderabad's Annapurna Studios. However, they revealed a staggering 300 guests attended. They kept the wedding traditional South Indian, which Dhulipala described as "temple-like," in an interview with The New York Times. She said, "What's expected out of an actor is more, in whatever way," adding that she didn't want to be burdened by that "more."
Dhulipala planned the wedding while shooting a film
Dhulipala took it upon herself to plan the wedding herself over two months, even as she was busy shooting a film. The wedding was preceded by several Telugu ceremonies including raata and mangala snanam. These rituals involved prayers to eight Hindu deities and applying turmeric paste to the bride as a cleansing ritual, respectively. The couple also performed a pelli kuthuru ceremony, where the family elders bless the bride. This was followed by Chaitanya's pelli koduku ceremony.
Traditional rituals and a 'young people's party' marked the celebrations
Apart from these traditional rituals, Dhulipala threw a "young people's party" for 40 close friends on the eve of her wedding day. At one point, her father joined the party unannounced, and she had to kindly ask him to leave. The wedding ceremony took place on December 4, starting at 5:00pm. The ceremony extended for several hours, with the most significant rituals taking place shortly after 8:00pm, according to astrological calculations based on their birth charts.
Dhulipala's wedding attire and food from five states
Dhulipala wore a silk saree woven with real gold for the ceremony, later changing into a white cotton saree woven in a nearby village. The wedding had local musicians instead of star performers, as Dhulipala preferred diversity over "homogeneity." Guests were served food from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana at five different stations. Japanese cuisine from Shoyu—a restaurant owned by Chaitanya—was also served, the pair revealed.
How a casual meet turned into forever for Chaitanya-Sobhita
Meanwhile, during the same interview, Chaitanya revealed that they had their first real conversation a year after his divorce from Samantha Ruth Prabhu in 2021. He mentioned how Dhulipala was first invited to Nagarjuna's house for a casual get-together. A few months later, she replied to an Instagram Story shared by Chaitanya about his Japanese restaurant. "I'm not a fan of communicating on social media," he said, flying from Hyderabad to Mumbai just to have lunch with her.
