Saifeena wedding: Her name is Khan!

Saif’s Pakistani relatives have also been invited to the bash.

After lots of speculations from naysayers that it may not happen, the hottest couple in Bollywood finally tied the knot on Tuesday, after being in a relationship for five years. Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor exchanged their nuptial vows in a private affair at their suburban Bandra residence.

“It was a registered marriage with three witnesses –Kareena’s father Randhir Kapoor, her mother Babita and Saif’s mother Sharmila,” marriage Registrar Surekha Ramesh told the Times of India. 32-year-old Kareena wore a green shalwar kurta with an embellished red dupatta, keeping the jewellery minimal and her hair down.  Saif, who is 10 years older, wore a grey kurta and white pajamas. The event was a cosy affair that was attended by close friends and family. The bigger parties — a nikah followed by a reception — will now be held at Saif’s ancestral home, the Pataudi Palace in Haryana, on October 17 and 18.

The official marriage registration may have been a small affair, but the couple started the shaadi celebrations with a bang. A sangeet ceremony was held on Sunday evening at Bebo’s new duplex apartment in Bandra. While Kareena looked gorgeous in an orange and gold lehenga designed by Manish Malhotra, Saif dressed up as nawab in a white Nehru jacket over a kurta. Many Bollywood celebrities were spotted at the party, including Neetu Singh, Babita, Sanjay Kapoor, Manish Malhotra, Soha Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu and Saif’s children from first wife, daughter Sara Ali Khan and son Ibrahim Ali Khan. It is being rumoured that Saif’s ex-wife Amrita Singh had also attended the ceremony, though the paparazzi failed to spot her.

As far as Kareena’s bridal dress is concerned, rumour had it that the Khans had had roped veteran designer Ritu Kumar, a favourite with the Pataudis, to recreate Sharmila Tagore’s bridal attire for Bebo. On the contrary, Manish Malhotra seemed to have had enough of other designers taking credit for designing the trousseau of his ‘best friend’ Kareena Kapoor. In an interview with an Indian daily, the designer had claimed that he had designed all the outfits she will be wearing during various functions.

Kareena is expected to don an INR4 million necklace designed by traditional wedding jewellery designers Kruti Jewellers from Rajkot. The jewellery designer has emphasised that such sets are only made for royal weddings.

As for Saif, Raghavendra Rathore has created a Benarasi brocade achkan for the actor’s wedding with inputs from the groom and references from his father’s wardrobe. “We are also doing a lot of stuff for his relatives, including his son Ibrahim, who will wear an achkan inspired by his grandpa,” the designer revealed.

Despite the rumours that Kareena, who will reportedly be changing her name to Kareena Kapoor Khan post-wedding, would convert to Islam before the big day, Saif denied it, saying, “I would never want her (Kareena) to change her religion.” A relative of Saif’s family, who has been invited to the Valima reception, told The Express Tribune that regardless of rumours that Kareena is being pressurised to convert because Saif doesn’t want a Hindu wife to inherit the family wealth, there has been no conversion and no ultimatum from Saif. She tells us that she met Kareena in Dubai at a Heroine promotional event in mid-September, where the actor told her that “nothing has been finalised” as far as the wedding is concerned. “Heroine was a big film for Kareena, so understandably she didn’t want to divert attention away from it by talking about the wedding,” she tells us, requesting anonymity. “Both of them are a little bit cheeky,” she adds, referring to Saifeena’s humorous reactions to the media’s questions about their wedding. “They seemed to be enjoying the attention [from the press] — they enjoy working people up.” Unfortunately, she cannot attend the wedding in India as the invitation arrived too late for a visa to be obtained.

While everybody is busy congratulating the newly wedded couple, including Hollywood actor Brad Pitt, who had told a national daily, “I am glad they will soon be getting married and I wish them all the luck and a beautiful life ahead”, Rakhi Sawant is not so excited for Bebo. Talking to the media, Rakhi said she feels that Saif uses and throws women like tissue paper. “Kareena is a great girl, I like her a lot, she would have got a better husband,” she said. Rakhi further predicted that the duo’s marriage won’t last long. But we all know that she’s a little bit (how modest of us) of an attention seeker.

Our heartiest congratulations to the couple!

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2012.

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