When Shruthi told me that her niece Ashlyn was a water baby, I did not take her all that seriously. Everyone treats the kid in their family like the special-est person ever, and definitely fairly so, so even when she said the party is going to be mermaid-themed, even when she said the venue is Ideal Beach Resort, I only pictured a party hall or a stage within the premises, where everyone would set things up for the party during the best evening light, and then I’d be scrambling for group pictures in the dark, post sun-down.

But boy, was I in for a surprise!

For starters, the party was RIGHT ON THE BEACH. Any closer, and we’d be touching the water. Every small detail pertaining to the party stuck to the theme. They brought the birthday butterball in a mermaid suit exactly during golden hour so we could shoot some beautiful portraits.

Just as the sky hit the most beautiful pink, the cake was cut, Ashlynn was suddenly given access to an unlimited access to sugar, courtesy, the elaborate dessert table, and frankly she was surprised the entire time too. :D

What I really felt I missed though was that, I could not get any pictures of Ashlynn near the water. She screamed bloody murder when there was any indication that she would be let down on the sand. She called and waved and laughed at the sight of every single one of her ‘annen’s and every single ‘kaka’ she spotted, but the water, for some reason, turned out to be a strict no-no.

We let her be, let her walk the length of the party area util Shruthi ran out of breath trying to keep pace, and the family lapped up every single minute of celebration, catching up on stories & good food. :)

Venue: Ideal beach Resort, Mahabalipuram
Decor & dessert table: Snehithi, Sugar Base Studio
Cake: Cacaobymann

Hit play & check out the pictures. :)

Scroll till the end for a happy surprise. :)

Everyone swore Ashlynn was a complete beach baby, so we gave it another shot after a few weeks.

We got her to the beach again, and this time, there was magic. :)

Dhruva’s birthday was special. ♥

You might think that is what I say about all my clients and shoots, (you’re not too far off from the truth, hehe), but, really, Dhruva’s birthday was really special.

I’ve known Nivedita (Nive) since college, and apart from various run-ins at college for everything except studies, my strongest memory of Nive is her in the UK, me at a friend’s place in Chennai, wide awake at 2 AM IST (or something such ungodly hour), waiting for the newest season of Sherlock to release, and fangirling and screaming about every tiny little detail as we watched it ‘together.’ Somewhere between this and exchanging messages about how her ‘Poochi Pandi’ was kicking all around her tummy, her family opened up to let me be a small part of their circle. One month after Poochi Pandi was born, renamed to Dhruva, I was delivering the entire set of valaikaapu pictures to her, and she tells me to mark my calendar for the next year, because her family had decided unanimously that I was to shoot when kutti Dru turned one. I still have a message from her (after I was surprised at someone booking me this early for a birthday) that says that her chitthi told her to book me 3 days after Dru kutti was born. And I’ve waited in quiet anticipation for an entire year to be able to shoot this wonderful family again. :)

And this party was almost everything I like in a birthday party for a kid - amazon delivery boxes covered with colour paper to spell out Dru’s name, a bunch of balloons for the kids to play around with, dinosaur stickers and everything Dru likes on the cake, mum and dad’s engagement board repurposed and turned into a blackboard to announce the birthday party, every tiny little decor item put together by Nive and her army of cousins, locally sourced flowers that do not induce a head ache, some lip-smacking food, and about 50 friends and family members, almost all of whom have been around the entire time to see Dru been born and grow up. :)

I’d like to happily add that Dru has now gone through several mottais, has bequeathed the strength of Baahubali (he moves actual heavy furniture around the house, I’ve seen it on video, I swear), wakes up as early as his mum, makes his folks blare ‘Bum bum tam tam’ at 6 in the morning, ‘Ammudu, let’s do kummudu’ on loop from 5 AM to 7 AM on weekends, demands his mother dance with him with her helmet on if she’d like to be let back inside the house after work, and ensures she stays fit as a fiddle with no gym whatsoever.

Nive also tells me he falls asleep to Krishnashtakam and other such beautiful pieces every single day when he does go to sleep, so here, hit play on this as you scroll down to look at the pictures. :)