With the discernible presence of women in professional as well as artistic fields, it’s evident that there is nothing a woman cannot do. When armed with the right expertise, potential and undying passion, there is no mountain she cannot scale.
Devika Sakhuja, a banker-turned-wedding decorator is a living example of it. She is an alumnus of Nottingham University with a Master's in Computational Finance. Devika was handling the Wealth Management Division at Citibank, UK, and had a stellar career, till she decided to give that up and embark on her entrepreneurial journey.
She moved back to India to join her family business, but her heart was always inclined towards events and dressing up spaces.
Holding that thought, she started her own venture under her name Devika Sakhuja, an event and floral design house. Devika says taking the traditional job route was easier since it allowed her to have a transferable job. But the desire to organize dreamy events kept gnawing her. It was very hard to quit the job at Citibank, “where everything was going right.”
“My friends thought I was crazy,” she says. But, Devika certainly knew what she was doing. With her sharp analytical skills, she was quick to discern that events (mainly weddings) were an untapped market in India and would explode soon. Devika’s first experience was planning her close friend’s anniversary party for 50 people where she managed everything.
Her meticulous planning and attention to detail about everything made the party the talk of the town. Receiving acknowledgements from people boosted her confidence and inspired her to plunge into uncertain waters. Subsequently, she planned a floral setting for someone's dining table for 5k in 2015. Devika started as a one-woman army.
Today, she has a team of young and super creative designers working with her.
The idea of events decoration came from Devika's experience of feeling riveted when she used to organise small events for family and friends. She recounts that even though she was working her dream job, she would end up having more fun in fine-tuning the details of any event.
Initially, the growth was slow but Devika continued to pursue her incorrigible passion. Presently, she is a known name. She has done weddings in India as well as internationally. To name a few, she has also planned destination weddings in places like Goa, Jodhpur, Udaipur, Jaipur, Turkey, Lucknow, Calcutta and Srinagar.
Though Devika has an inherent aesthetic style, she constantly takes inspiration from India’s cultural heritage while maintaining the quirkiness of modern-day artistic trends. Giving each event the uniqueness, it deserves, most of her design elements are intended exclusively.
Devika only accepts 20-25 weddings in a year so that she can immaculately execute each wedding with a sense of distinctiveness. It is easy to see how devoted she is about her work. There is ‘n’ number of clients that can vouch for Devika’s innovative approach towards making their wedding exclusive.
Since inception, she has strived to create bespoke, gorgeous and fun designs, capable of bringing dreams to life. Unfazed with successfully executing 100 weddings, Devika says, “This is just the beginning of a journey, we reached some distance and there are still miles to go.”
(Deccan Chronicle doesn't endorse the above content.)
