Mar 11, 2026 2:48pm IST
Allu Sirish Shares Allu Arjun’s Advice During His Wedding: ‘Don’t Stress, These Moments Are Once in a Lifetime’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Telegu actor Allu Sirish tied the knot with Nayanika Reddy on March 6, 2026. It was an intimate affair and the traditional ceremonies were held at Aina Event Spaces in Hyderabad. In a conversation with Variety India, the actor opened up about the wedding, the rituals that shaped the ceremony and the advice he received from his brother, actor Allu Arjun.
How close was your wedding to what you had imagined?
It went beyond what I expected. Initially, Nayanika and I wanted a small, intimate wedding. We have many elders in the family, we couldn’t make them travel. so we felt it was better to celebrate it in Hyderabad, the way all of us envisioned it. Weddings are like joint projects. They never run exactly how you imagine them. In scale and in terms of everything else, it became much bigger than what I imagined. At many points I had to step up and say, “This event is getting much bigger than what I imagined.” But in the end, it was definitely beautiful. Looking back, I wouldn’t do it any other way.
Was there a mood board in place for the wedding?
Though we’re modern, we’re very culturally rooted; my mother and her mother as well. Also, I was reading something and realised, anything over 2,000 years old is classified as a classical language, like Sanskrit, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. I thought if our language is 2,000 years old, then generations of people have passed this culture to us. We can’t suddenly flip it and make it an Instagram wedding and discard what our ancestors practiced. So we said: let’s not do a Pinterest-style wedding. Let’s do something culturally rooted and authentic to us. Let’s go through the rituals and understand their essence. In our wedding we didn’t have any DJ. All the events had classical musicians playing. Even the décor was traditional South Indian. The mood board was simple: what looks Telugu, what feels Telugu. Even if you go back to a wedding 60 or 80 years, ours looked the same. For the parties, we experimented. The cocktail and reception are not traditional Telugu customs, so we were okay with those being modern. But the pelli kuthuru, pelli koduku, pasupu function and the main wedding were done traditionally. We had one pundit from her family (Telangana) following their customs and one from ours (Vijayawada). We took the best practices from both traditions and created one ceremony that honoured everything. We let our families handle most of the arrangements and simply enjoyed the experience.
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How did your love story with Nayanika begin?
I met her at a party held for my cousin Varun Tej and Lavanya’s wedding in October 2023. We started talking. It was a slow-burn romance. We were hanging out as friends. There was attraction from day one, but both of us took it slow. My fear was that her sister is friends with Sneha, so if something went wrong I didn’t want their relationship to become awkward. She had a similar hesitation. She thought, “This guy is an actor, maybe he’s not serious.” Her best friend Shalini, who is married to actor Nithiin, gave her reassurance that I was a good guy. Eventually in October last year we started dating officially. Our original plan was to date for a year and then see if we were compatible for marriage. But within a month or two, we were already talking about the future, about things like our children speaking Telugu at home. We kept it low profile, and avoided going to parties together. But eventually people started noticing and asking questions. So we decided to make our parents meet and make it official. It all happened very organically. There was no dramatic moment where I decided I would marry her. It just happened naturally.
What is one memory from the wedding build-up that you will always cherish?
We organised small dinners with different groups of cousins from both sides. One dinner was at Charan’s house to introduce him to Nainika outside formal settings. By the time the wedding arrived, everyone felt like family. I’ve seen Telugu movies where weddings bring two families together in celebration. When it happens to you and you’re the central figure, it feels very different. Many times it felt like I was in a movie. Relatives from the U.S. and different towns arrived. We would have large lunches together and sit around talking. It felt like a festival. When my brother got married 15 years ago we were all kids. Now everyone is grown up, with spouses and children. So this celebration felt very different.
Did your older brother Allu Arjun offer any advice before the wedding?
My father and brother believe people should experience things themselves. They don’t usually give advice unless asked. The one thing my brother said was that things will go wrong. Something might not go as planned. Clothes may not arrive on time or there may be delays. But don’t stress about it because these are the best moments of your life. Two years ago my parents went to Chennai for their 50th anniversary and revisited places connected to their wedding. Listening to their memories made me realise that even decades later I will remember this moment. So I decided to stay present. I gave away my phone and said I didn’t care about pictures. I wanted to experience everything fully. Relatives told stories from my childhood that I didn’t even remember. Those moments were surreal.
The note you wrote to your father-in-law was incredibly touching. What made you write it?
Nayanika's older sister Niharika stepped into their father’s role after he passed away. She handled everything the way a father would have done and more. But I felt that the foundation of this beautiful family was built by their father. I never met him because he passed away 13 or 14 years ago, but I kept hearing about him. Seeing both our families come together made me feel his absence deeply. Everything we were enjoying was also because of what he had built. So I wanted to honour him and thank him for raising such wonderful daughters and for raising Nainika the way he did. That’s why I dedicated my wedding post to him.
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