Bride and Groom Magazine’s ‘Celebrity Designer Wedding Show’ is back! Ahead of the show,  which takes place on 21 March at the Hilton Colombo, The Sunday Morning Brunch had a quick chat with Bride and Groom Magazine CEO and Managing Director Pramith Mallawaratchie on what this new edition of the Celebrity Designer Wedding Show has in store. 

The Celebrity Designer Wedding Show first took place in 2009 and happened annually until it was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This year marks the first Celebrity Designer Wedding Show since the pandemic and is also the first time the show joins hands with the Indira Cancer Trust. 

“From this partnership, our main objective is to create awareness about cancer, the importance of getting regular checkups, and to raise funds for the Indira Cancer Trust,” Mallawaratchie said, adding that this was also the base for a special project with the Indira Cancer Trust that would give brides with cancer greater opportunities to have weddings as close to their dreams as possible, despite their diagnosis. 

This year’s Celebrity Designer Wedding Show will feature around 20 prolific designers including greats like Michael Wijesuriya, Ramani Fernando, Dhananjaya Bandara, Poornima Abeyratne, and many more.

Given that this is the first Celebrity Designer Wedding Show since the start of the pandemic, Brunch also asked Mallawaratchie how it felt to be able to restart such a platform for the bridal fashion industry: “It feels fantastic. As you know, the pandemic greatly affected the wedding industry, which is filled with a lot of small business people who have put a great deal of energy and risk into bringing up their own businesses. The pandemic greatly affected their livelihoods, and now with Covid-19 under control, it felt like a good time to have this event.” 

Mallawaratchie also shared that despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the wedding industry had been able to stay strong and now that we were out of the pandemic (and also the height of our national instability), couples that had been forced to postpone their weddings were now finally able to hold their weddings, even if they were outside the traditional auspicious dates. 

This upcoming edition of Celebrity Designer Wedding Show is something of a return to form and Mallawaratchie shared that he looked forward to being able to showcase what was on the minds of Sri Lanka’s most prolific bridal designers and set trends for upcoming bridal fashion.

“The event itself is also meant to serve as an advantage for couples planning to get married who are looking for ideas for their future weddings,” Mallawaratchie said, noting that this year’s Celebrity Designer Wedding Show was a unique opportunity to see what was at the forefront of Sri Lankan wedding fashion while contributing to a noble cause.