Mahek And Manthan’s Love Story Had All The Tropes We Love In Romance

For those of us who have grown up watching and reading rom-coms, tropes where a boy and girl dislike each other at first and then eventually fall in love are limited to the pages of well-worn novels and '90s movies. Nothing like this ever happens in real life, right? However, Mahek and Manthan’s love story will have you believe otherwise.

Mahek Talaviya and Manthan Mehta met back in school in Rajkot (Gujarat) when the latter’s school merged with Mahek’s. “He was the kind of a person I couldn't tolerate at all,” says Mahek, laughing. “He was really extroverted and popular. He would go around breaking all the rules and would say that he liked to make his own rules. I was trained to be very ‘proper proper’. I hated going against authority, and I loved following rules. So we were more like enemies.”

A group trekking trip to Laddakh in 2014, however, proved to be the catalyst in bringing them together. “In school, you know how they used to place kids alphabetically? So ‘Mahek’ and ‘Manthan’ would always be placed together,” recalls Mahek. “So for those 10 days, we were almost constantly next to each other. That’s how we started learning things about each other beyond our differences.”

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The forced proximity led them to realise that they had more things in common than not. “I am a Bollywood girl, and I love Hindi movie songs. This was not common in my school back then as most of my classmates used to listen to Western songs,” says Mahek. “Since we were mostly together on the trip, we began sharing headphones and realised our music choices were more actually really similar.”

The ice began thawing between the two, and they began to realise that the other might not be so bad after all. “We don't have a date, as such, to celebrate, but we just started dating after this,” she says.

The journey from high school sweethearts to newlyweds was not an easy one for Mahek and Manthan. The two moved to Pune after school for further studies but, as fate would have it, they ended up on the opposite sides of the city. “I used to travel to her campus at the other end of the city on my scooter to pick her up. Then we would spend the entire day together, drop her back to her place and make my way back to my campus at the opposite end of the city,” says Manthan, “But, later, I found out that even Shah Rukh Khan used to do this for Gauri Khan back in the day, so it felt nice!” (The scooter that held so many valuable memories for the two made its way to the couple’s wedding invitation card years later!).

So when was it that the two realised that the other was the person they wanted to spend the rest of their days with? For Mahek, the realisation happened slowly, slowly, then all at once. “I lost my father in 2016, and it was a really difficult time for me,” she recalls. “I would cry a lot, and I went through bouts of depression as I dealt with the grief.” Manthan’s quiet support and presence in her life during this trying time drove home the fact that she was, in fact, in love with him. “For me, it was decided on our Laddakh trip only back in 2014,” says Manthan, without waiting a beat.

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As in any Bollywood romantic movie worth its salt, the couple in love had to face their families and potentially deal with the drama of it all. But Mahek and Manthan’s filmy love story was, thankfully, free of all such clichés, despite them living in a fairly conservative Gujarati society.

“I had felt really guilty hiding it from my mom, especially after we lost my dad, so I told her everything,” says Mahek. “My brother Dhruvik and sister-in-law Sabrina also knew from the beginning, so my inner circle was aware of his existence.” This gave Manthan the push to open up about their relationship with his family. Once again, fate proved to be a big player in their love story, and the two discovered that their family had a surprising connection in the past.

About 25 years ago, both Mahek’s and Manthan’s fathers unknowingly went on a trip to Goa together. “We actually found a photo where the two are in the same frame,” says Manthan. “It was a coincidence that our fathers were in the same place at the same time without knowing each other.” The photograph, like others from their journey, earned a place on a special wall of memories at their sangeet ceremony.

When it came to the wedding, they both wanted an intimate affair someplace outside of Rajkot. But it soon became evident to them that a small destination wedding wouldn’t work out for them. “We’re both very family-oriented. So it was more important for us to have our elders with us rather than do a wedding where they were not able to come,” says Mahek. “I come from a joint family, and even though he's from a nuclear family, he's very attached to them.” But, ultimately, the couple did end up getting the dream wedding they never knew they wanted.

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“The one thing we both agreed on was that we wanted the wedding to be something that nobody in Rajkot had seen before,” says Mahek. And so their wedding planning journey began.

While, traditionally, it’s the bride who fixates on small details about the wedding, for Mahek and Manthan, it was not the case. “He was a groomzilla,” declares Mahek, while Manthan laughs. The groom had experience planning and pulling off weddings, as he had done so during his sister’s wedding in 2022. So he came with clear ideas of how he wanted everything to be at their wedding.

Manthan was given carte blanche to plan and design the wedding the way he wanted to, and plan he did. The months leading up to the wedding were filled with long and detailed meetings with Mahek’s family and the various vendors Manthan wanted for the nuptials, trials, and location scouting.

“(Manthan and Dhruvik) ​​didn't go to their office for two entire months before the wedding,” recalls Mahek. “From morning till night, they were only doing wedding planning and meeting with the event planners and all!”

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Manthan hand-picked each vendor responsible for different tasks at the wedding. Take, for instance, the photographers. He got on board with Ahmedabad-based photographer Gajendra Kumavat and his team to take care of capturing their wedding. However, out of the 12-person team required to cover an event of this scale, Manthan selected four of them specially from around the country after vetting their work. “We got two photographers from Kerala, one from Goa and one from Thiruvananthapuram.”

The groom’s extensive planning (with the help of Rajkot-based event planning company Astute Events) and detail-oriented approach resulted in a smooth and fun-filled multi-day ceremony for the couple and their close family and friends.

The wedding ceremony, held in a resort in Rajkot, kicked off with a vibrant mehndi ceremony held in the open grounds of the venue. 

This was followed by a poolside haldi ceremony, where the dres code was strictly Indian weaves.

Being Bollywood buffs, it was a given that their sangeet ceremony would be a rocking, dance-filled, glamorous event. The couple and their families’ choreographed dance performances were followed by a mini concert by former Indian Idol contestant Rajdeep Chatterjee.

And then came the main wedding ceremony.

The two knew from the beginning that they wanted traditional Gujarati rituals for their wedding, but they also wanted to make these traditions their own. 

“This was the part I enjoyed the most about our wedding,” says Mahek. “We had decided that we would go full traditional with the rituals and traditions at the wedding, but we would do them in a way that felt appropriate for both of us.”

One of the traditions that the couple tweaked was during the exchange of mangalsutra. After Manthan tied the mangalsutra around Mahek’s neck, the bride tied a bracelet around the groom’s wrist to reciprocate the ritual.

Another tradition they eschewed was the typical mandap. Their wedding rituals were held onstage under a beautiful fabricated tree (which was created by the same designer who worked on Anant Ambani’s wedding a few months ago, shares the groom).

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“The stage, that day, was a place of worship,” shares Mahek. “It was very symbolic and beautiful.”

Now that the wedding is over, the couple is looking forward to being married. “Every day is an exciting one,” says Mahek. “I’m looking forward to the normal things, like watching movies and ordering in, you know?” Well, we don’t think a love story like theirs could have had a better start to the next chapter.

Here’s wishing Mahek and Manthan a lifetime of happiness!