Model weddings

But weddings seem to come in threes these days and the next in queue to break hearts is former Miss India and Delhi’s own emcee-at-large Manpreet Brar, who will get married to Arjun Wallia (he’s ‘‘into corporate stuff’’ according to Manpreet) next week (though the kaleeres like the bouquet during a Christian wedding at the wedding fell not on her but on a friend of Rohit Bal’s).

For now, though, the bride of the moment is ‘Noyona’. She wore a pink salwaar kameez designed by friend Rohit Bal (who took his role very seriously and kept pulling out errant threads from her duppata the entire afternoon of the shaadi and made wise comments such as ‘oh, your jootis are matching with your dress?’, while Gurpeet claimed to have done his outfit himself (doesn’t seem to have much faith in wifey’s designer pals now, does he?) right from the kalgi to the jootis.

Among the ‘‘close freinds’’ who flew down especially for the occasion were starlet Pooja Batra (in bleached blonde hair), Sheetal Studio’s Dhiren Shah, Jodhpur’s Raghavendra Rathore, Ambika Pillai (who was in Chennai) and Mumbai’s Inder Sudan (one wonders where co-cat-walkers such as Madhu Sapre were).

The next day’s reception saw some more guests from Mumbai, including India Fashion Week baiters Abu Jaani and Sandeep Khosla (the ones whom Delhi’s Gudda allegedly bad-mouthed designed the bride’s reception outfit), the bottle-blonde model Rajlaxmi and the lovely Michelle.

Rina Dhaka, who had missed the wedding, complained about her frozen toes, also turned up for the reception.

As for the love story, well, Noyonika and Gurpreet are supposed to have met much before fame touched either of them.

Introduced by a common friend, they soon became great friends, but was it love at first sight? ‘‘Well sort of,’’ said a grinning albeit tipsy dulah Gurpreet. They plan to return to work after another round of receptions at Calcutta and it’s only later that the honeymoon will happen, in Maldives.

So what’s with the story of twice chicken, third time committed? ‘‘We had just thrown a party together and there were stories in the papers that we were getting engaged,’’ said Gurpreet.

And is this the end of Noyonika’s modelling career? ‘‘I want her to do what she wants to as I fell in love with her before she was a model. And frankly, it doesn’t make a difference to me,’’ said hubby, while Noyonika, who’s working for FTV (yes, the same one Sushma Swaraj is after), shrugged her pretty shoulders.