From a very young age, people have expectations and ideas about their wedding day. For women, they often involve dressing up and looking their absolute best.
Vashnavi Poovanedran was no different. However, as fate would have it, she was diagnosed with cancer twice within a span of 5 years.
She beat it, both the times, but it cost her her hair which led her to believe that she is not attractive and no one will like her.
Having gone through cancer treatments (chemotherapy, etc.), losing my hair was by far the hardest thing I ever had to go through. I felt that I was not beautiful enough to be loved and was not beautiful enough to look or ever feel like a bride. Hair, it is our ‘crowning glory’ and having that taken away from you is devastating.
But she chose not to let that dampen her spirit. After defeating the disease in December 2018, she has now posted pictures from her bridal photoshoot on Instagram (that she uses under the name Navi Indran Pillai).
For me, as a cancer survivor, I dreamt the day I marry the love of my life. Dreamt, what it is like to look like a bride, to feel like a bride.
She says that treatment for cancer gives people ‘limitations’, ‘robs them from beauty’ and ‘takes away their confidence’.
As a little girl, we have always dreamt of what our big day will be like and how we would look as a bride. But having cancer has stripped some of us from fulfilling these dreams. Alot of cancer survivors has postponed or even cancelled their big day.
She didn’t cancel her big day, though. She embraced her ‘flaws’ and flaunted them to look the prettiest bride.
Deciding her look wasn’t very easy but her makeup artist at Blush, Beauty and Beyond said:
The first challenge was to create & carve eyebrows on a canvas that have lost their own. I had to draw individual hair strokes to mimic the appearance of real brow hair & to ensure it didn’t look too fake.
While further adding:
The next challenge was to choose and fix a headpiece, without a single hairpin involved. This wasn’t easy but I’m so glad we figured it out