We are getting married!

We met in a tiny, remote town in India called Kharagpur (or as many of us lovingly call it: KGP!). We were pleading with one of our professors to cancel an ill-timed (and decidedly ill-prepared for) exam, when each of us noticed a cute soul staring at the other across the corridor. Things quickly escalated from there to late night tea, long chats over Google Talk, and even longer walks across the campus! On our third rendezvous, Ved asked Dooti out, and after some not-so-careful consideration, Dooti decided that this was it! Thus began our journey.

In 2011, Dooti came to the US for her PhD and left poor Ved alone in Mumbai. We managed to last a year before Ved got fed up, packed his bags, said goodbye to his finance job, and joined Dooti for his PhD at UConn. The PhDs were tough, with nerve wracking exams, code bugs that defied squashing, and late night existential crises. But we were living together for the first time, which was incredibly exciting! Being together made even the most mundane of activities fun. Picking up groceries at Walmart became a romantic stroll under neon lights. Making sense of furniture assembly instructions became adventures in architectural design! We watched innumerable beautiful sunsets from our back porch. We discovered the world on shoestring budgets. We've always been in love, but through these years, we became each others' closest friend.

After our PhDs, we threw ourselves into our careers and eventually moved to NYC, where we've been dragging each other to weird art exhibits, board game parlors, candlelit concerts, etc etc! Fun and games aside though, this was for both of us a time to grow together, to explore our relationship and to begin to work on chipped edges. We feel that we have finally learned to communicate well and understand each other deeply, and therefore feel confident in taking this important next step. We could not have done this without the support of our friends and family, who stayed with us, counseled us, scolded us, loved us, and helped us get to where we are today. We hope this ceremony will be a celebration of our appreciation for each other and for you.