Kajal Aggarwal announced her engagement to GautamKitchlu in October and eventually tied the knot in an intimate ceremony on October 30th. Since this love story has remained a secret for too long, the question had to be asked. Kajal’sresponse? “Not only has he been accepting of my success, he’s also extremely encouraging when it comes to my career and that is exactly why I chose to marry my best friend,” says Kajal with glee.
Their love story is very much like Chandler and Monica. “We met a decade ago at a mutual friend’s wedding and we immediately hit it off. I was from the bride’s side and he was from the groom’s side, it was so typical and filmy (laughs). Unfortunately, after the wedding we didn’t kept in touch. But we later dated briefly for a while after that and then again disappeared from each other’s lives. Eventually we came back to each other again but this time we managed to cultivate the most beautiful and the strongest friendship there could ever be. It came out of nowhere and we just decided to take this friendship to the next step,” says a happy Kajal.
The actor believes that the pandemic played a very crucial role in her marriage decision. “Earlier, we had the luxury of meeting very often at several places but when the pandemic struck and we used to get only a couple of minutes at a grocery store buying essentials and wearing masks, we realized how hard it was for us to stay apart from each other. That is when we decided that we wanted to stay together for the rest of our lives. We take time and people for granted and only during such trying times we realize the worth and value of relationships. We have been each other’s constant for a decade and there was no way anybody could have understood us as individuals as we had each other,” insists the new bride. Gautam, made the gentlemanly gesture and came to meet Kajal’s parents, and there began their official love story.
Behind a lockdown wedding…
Planning an Indian wedding is wild enough without throwing a pandemic into the mix. Kajal’s case was no different: “I did go crazy (laughs). I am a huge control-freak and to plan the wedding in the safest way possible was the biggest challenge for me. There is no way I’m a chill bride but fortunately my guests are the people I love and they already know me well so it’s fine if they see me jitter (laughs).” Precautions had to be taken, of course and that further added to the labour: “My guests were all quarantined, tested and then allowed to come to the wedding. In fact, they were not even allowed to visit salons but ultimately it is for everyone’s health so we could allenjoy the moment to the fullest without any concerns during the wedding. We had sanitizer stations set up everywhere. Protocols were in order and nobody was allowed to loiter around the city. But, believe me this did not even remotely take away the joy and fun we had at the wedding. Although these are crazy times and planning this wedding was the hardest thing to do, luckily for me, my family is a support like no other. Also, despite the safety bubble I had created for my guests, it was a fifty-strong wedding. It made me realize that I would have been on another level of fluster had we planned a big, fat wedding with a heavy guest list (laughs).”
Made for forever
Marrying her best friend is what Kajal counts as the happiest moment in her life. Going by her wedding pictures and her stunning Anamika Khanna lehenga it is hard to disagree with that. And she treasures it as much more than just a milestone:“I wouldn’t want it any other way and I cannot imagine it with any other person. I am happy with the way things have folded out for me including its timing and faith. I am grateful because he was the one from the very beginning and that is the best feeling ever.”
