Ankita & Akash met in undergrad college and have been together ever since. Their common passion for love, for art, for stories, travel, adventure keeps them going. They spend 24 hours of a day with each other, and still crave for more time together.
Ankita has done her master’s in photography from NID, Ahmedabad and Akash has done his MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur. Their common passion for love, travel & photography made them launch WeddingNama in 2013 as a firm that photographs and films weddings.
When did the photography and filmmaking blossom into your mind?
WeddingNama was born out of passion to capture love stories artistically. Ankita used to shoot solo earlier under the banner of ‘Ankita Asthana Photography’. Slowly the wedding industry evolved and there came a need for a full-fledged team to document someone’s wedding beautifully. Akash quit his job in the finance sector and together they both started WeddingNama. Today, they have a full-time team of very dedicated, hardworking photographers, cinematographers and editors. They bring a whole new level of quality, finesse and perfection into the world of weddings.
What are the challenges you faced before getting into this business?
The biggest challenge when we had just started WeddingNama was to change the mindset of people. People were used to old traditional style of photography & filming in weddings and some people specially the elders in the family didn’t really understand the new age contemporary style of photography & filming. Some people even insisted on having multiple teams at their weddings which restricted our creative freedom. We had to educate them a lot of times through multiple meetings and sample of work. But nowadays most of the people have started understanding and appreciating the way we capture the weddings.
Another challenge is to differentiate yourself because it is a very crowded space. We’re constantly thinking of new ideas and ways to capture love stories. Also, in this business, it is very easy to copy the work of another so we have constantly reinventing ourselves.
How many contracts you get in a year and how you plan to manage them?
We like to limit the number of weddings we take up each year. The exact number varies each year but like to keep it less than 25 so that we can devote enough time to each wedding. We get a lot of enquiries from couples who have plans of getting married but we like to work with couples who share a deep appreciation for life, possibly have an adventurous flair towards it, and are seeking a less conventional, more authentic and real approach to how they want their wedding documented.
How has been the journey with WeddingNama so far?
During our initial years, one of the first big corporate weddings we took up was of a CEO of a big private bank where Akash was still working. He used to accompany Ankita for all the meetings while working at the bank. The family used to jokingly ask him when was he planning to quit and do this full time. Though Akash didn’t have any plans of quitting that time but he eventually did quit his corporate job few days before their wedding function.
Another very important transition for us has been buying a large office space in Andheri West and moving our team there so they can have a happy environment to work in. We’ve designed it with great care and even have a mini-theatre and a cafe-like space inside. (Architectural Digest did a piece on our office)
We now have an in-house team of over 15 full time professionals working together in our office in Andheri West, Mumbai. Each team member has been carefully selected and their skills have been honed. Special emphasis is laid on latest technology. A lot of time is spent for each project on the postproduction & manner of delivery. Before the photographs and films reach the couple, they go through layers of selection, post processing, reviews and by the time it is ready for viewing, it is of extremely high quality.
We have lucky to have a very good clientele. Some of the names include Chanda Kochhar, Rajan Raheja (Chairman, Raheja Group), Dr. Ramakant Panda (Founder & MD, Asian Heart Hospital), Neeta Lulla (Bollywood Fashion Designer), Masoom Minawala (Miss Style Fiesta), Zaheer Khan and Sagarika Ghatge, among others
Tell us something about WeddingNama School ?
WeddingNama School started last year (2019) as three-day multifaceted, immersive, classroom style coaching sessions, everything to do with wedding photography & filming. This year we have been conducting regular sessions online on our WNSchool Instagram channel. Our goal is to promote learning in this field and share our experiences with other photographers. When we came to the city of Bombay to setup our business there was not much interaction between people in the industry and not a lot of knowledge sharing. After gaining a few years of experience in the industry we felt that we could share it with others, hence WNSchool was born!
How this pandemic impacted your business?
Wedding industry is one of the many industries that has been severely hit by the pandemic. Social gathering and human interaction, the two things that weddings are all about have been restricted so the slowdown in the industry doesn’t come as a surprise. But we believe that it might only be a short-term set back. By the end of this year we expect that intimate weddings will start happening. But since people love to celebrate with full flair, it won’t take time for them to get back to the big fat Indian wedding. In our country they are deeply tied to people’s emotions and are in fact, essential in many ways.
We have been offering live sessions free of charge through WeddingNama School during the pandemic in order to give back to the community and raise the morale of young photographers.
Achievement / recognition
WeddingNama has won numerous international awards at Junebug, Fearless Awards, ISPWP and WPJA. Having consecutively won at the Great Indian Wedding Awards (GIWA) and WOW Asia Awards, the leading awards in the wedding industry, for many years, they have firmly established themselves among the top wedding photography and film companies in the country. Their work has been exhibited across the globe in exhibitions in London and Brazil and in publications like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, NYTimes and Huffington Post. Ankita and Akash also mentors for brands like Nikon, Profoto and Harman Technology.
What’s in the future?
We love weddings and so do most people in India! So the future is bright. We are planning to expand to other cities in future.
A lot of our focus is also on WeddingNama School. The program is made for Photographers and cinematographers who are either already working in the industry or intend to enter the industry to hone their skills. It not only covers the technical and creative side but also covers the business aspects.
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