Vegan Couple Serves 100% Vegan Food at a Traditional South Indian Wedding with Zero Compromises

August 20, 2022

A marriage is about two individuals but the wedding ceremony is a coming together of two different families and their guests. Food is a huge and critical part of every wedding ceremony and at times, can lead to heated discussions. Families want to serve the most memorable food, as let’s be honest, most of us attend weddings for the feast.

Shruthi and Abhishek were already following a vegan lifestyle when they decided to get married. It felt only natural to want the festivities to also celebrate their life choices and values. They wished to use it as an opportunity to start a conversation about a vegan lifestyle. At a South Indian Brahmin wedding, food served is always vegetarian but with a generous, and sometimes hidden, use of milk, curd, and ghee.

Vegan First spoke to the newly weds Shruthi and Abhishek to understand how they pulled off a big Tamizh-Kannadiga wedding ceremony spread over three days with lavish vegan feasts throughout.

Let’s start with a little about both of you.

Shruthi: I am a software engineer. I work with Amazon in Seattle.

Abhishek: I also work in Seattle, work for Salesforce. We've both been in the US for 7 years now. We went to same grad school. Moved to different cities, then reconnected and found that we bonded. Started off as a long distance thing—she on the West Coast, me on the East Coast—but we made it work.

Were you always vegan? Or is that a newer journey?

Shruthi: It’s (relatively) new. We’ve been vegetarian all our lives so the transition has been easier, I should think. We’ve been vegan for a year.

Abhishek: We’ve had conversations about going vegan for about 6 years. I feel bad, looking back now, about not becoming vegan sooner. Because of COVID and not having to go to office, we’ve been able to make this a shared experience.

Shruthi: We have struggled with different products personally during the transitions. I struggled with yogurt/curd.

Abhishek: For me, I couldn't give up whey protein as I couldn’t find an alternative. And plant based proteins didn’t suit me as I have a gastrointestinal problem.

What was the reason you both went vegan?

Abhishek: A little of everything—sustainability, ethicalness and health…But I’m much more of a staunch ethical vegan. Shruthi is more of a practical vegan. She looks at it from all angles, but for me, even if it’s not bad for the environment, you should still be vegan.

Shruthi: At the start of COVID, I was reading a lot about climate change so that played a big motivator. And the facts about animal cruelty was also a big one.

What about the idea of a vegan food at the wedding… was that natural or something you needed to think through?

Abhishek: In traditional South Indian weddings they use a lot of dairy. It didn’t sit right that we were going to spend lakhs of rupees on dairy food. From the start of the planning process, we insisted that we need to try our best to make this a wedding one with vegan food. In South India, there have been trailblazers before us but the pathways weren’t as well established as we would have liked it to be. It’s certainly been a challenge but I’m glad we persevered.

Was the main idea to be plant based or/and sustainable, environmentally friendly?

So you decided to have a huge vegan feast at the wedding but was it easy?

Abhishek: For the longest time, there were no vendors we could find in the South or they were all in North India, and they couldn't figure out the transportation logistics. This was a huge hurdle. We were in the US, so was hard to find vendors and get contacts. In the last one month or so we found vendors in Chennai. They all came together locally with quality products and at a great price.

Special call out to Wegun—run by a couple Umamaheswari and Jaya Surya. Just a few weeks before the wedding, when we were still struggling, we got their contact from Mr. Aravindan of Vijay Sweets, Coimbatore. They are some of the kindest and most earnest people you will ever meet. After getting to know them our menu actually expanded. They brought a lot to the table and gave us a lot of confidence.

Tell us about the feast you served at the wedding but firstly, the challenges!

Abhishek: When we approached several leading caterers in Chennai with our proposal, most turned us down as they'd either never heard of veganism or felt they didn't have the know-how. Some felt that using vegan alternatives to traditional dairy products would negatively impact the quality of the food and feared their reputation would take a hit. For the few that agreed to take on the challenge, we relied on our families to go to these caterers for 'taste tests' to evaluate their attempts at vegan traditional South Indian food.

We approached Vinayaka Catering services. They are also one of the big players in the summer wedding space. We spoke with Mr. Sriram and from the outset, he was totally open. He was worried about his reputation but willing to experiment as he'd never done a vegan wedding before.

Shruthi: His (Abhishek’s) parents had visited us in the States and we had started the conversation about serving vegan food at the wedding. Since there were with us, they were exposed and knew the products available. With my parents, it was more challenging, because they have not been exposed at all. The products available in India are vastly different from the ones in the US. Without knowing the concept fully or ever having tasted vegan products, my parents were the ones who had to go for tastings with caterers who were willing to take on the challenge.

Tell me about what all you served at your vegan feasts and the high-points!

We had a three day wedding. We served a variety of dishes you would see at any South Indian wedding. There was all the traditional food with the regular side dishes on the banana leaf. We experimented a bit at the reception.

We sourced ice cream from a vegan ice cream supplier in Chennai called Baba Ramdev run by Ashok Kumar. They take a mango or an orange, scoop it out, mix in icecream, and put it back. We had guests eating two to three servings.

We had the opportunity prior to the wedding to eat at The Viridian Plate, Chennai's only all-vegan restaurant. After being blown away by the food and the warmth of owners Gayathri and Shankar, we decided to order something from them for the wedding too. They helped supply us with delicious Chocolate Mousse and a Pumpkin Kheer.

Shruthi: We even served chaas/buttermilk through the three days. Vinayaka even made the bakshanam—the sweets and savoury items given to the guests as they leave the wedding on the last day—without any dairy, using vegan alternatives. It turned out really great.

Crumbheaven is a bakery in Chennai that creates custom, all-vegan cakes for events and ceremonies. Ms. Smuruthi, who runs the business, was incredibly kind to take our order on short notice and created an amazing black-forest tiered cake for us!

So how did your guests react?

Shruthi: For a couple of meals, I was actually going to my cousins and asking them if they liked the food, did they find anything different? Everyone was taken aback by my question because they didn't even realise that things had been substituted. They couldn’t tell the difference. That was important for us.

Abhishek: We didn’t want to give any room for people to be like oh, this could have been better.

We had this huge flex banner at the entrance saying the food at the wedding was all vegan, and explaining why it was important. Many were curious to see how it tasted. They wanted to go try everything on the menu. It did start a good conversation.

What was the BIG WOW from this experience?

Abhishek: Before the wedding, I had relatives come to my parents and say if you are vegan, you should get small amounts of food made just for you, let the rest of us eat normal. That has changed after the wedding. It was very successful.

Tips for others who wish to have a vegan wedding: Go Local!

Abhishek: Try to source as locally as possible, because there are a lot of family businesses trying to gain a foothold in the vegan market. These local providers are often very friendly and accommodating.

Like this? Read: Things You Experience When You’re The ONLY Vegan In The Family!

Read More:From The Duo Who Had It their Way, A Truly Green Engagement On World Vegan Day!