Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.
It was November 2020, and Sowmya Pelluru had just moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina, to live with her family. She sat down with her traditional, South Indian parents. “I just want to let you know that I am going to be alone and I’m OK with it,” the 26-year-old announced.
Her focus was on Manakii, the socially-conscious underwear company she created that, for every pair purchased, donated a pair to a woman in need. Sowm started working on the business in 2017, after getting her undergraduate degree and moving to Boston. As a volunteer at Rosie’s Place, “I learned that underwear is one of the most needed, least donated products in women’s shelters,” she said.
To be able to pursue her passions in Boston was a dream. “I’m obsessed with this city,” she says. “If you’re a Bostonian, I feel like you are cared for. Like you’re one of a group.”
But when the pandemic hit, she made the difficult decision to move back home to save money.
In Charlotte, she concentrated on her business. But her declaration of singlehood didn’t last long. That December, after connecting on Hinge, she met up with data strategist Zachary Parkes, 30, at a local brewery the day after her 27th birthday.
“He met me right as I turned my life upside down,” Sowm says. But Zach was intrigued by the beautiful woman who had posted pictures of herself in Paris on her profile.
“Right from the get-go, I felt like I could talk with Sowm about pretty much anything,” Zach recalls. “It just felt right in ways that it didn’t with other dates.”
Sowm remembers thinking, This is different. This is special. She called a friend the next day. “I was like, ‘OK, I think that was my last first date.’ And that’s crazy. And that is what it ended up being.”
Over the next few weeks, Sowm and Zach texted or talked daily. Zach wanted to get a dog, but shelters were overwhelmed with requests. Sowm’s friend, meanwhile, needed to rehome her mini Australian shepherd puppy, Riley.
Zach was interested, but worried: Would it be too much to take care of a puppy alone? “I was like, ‘Well, I love dogs,’” Sowm says. “And I know Riley. I was attached to her.”
On New Year’s Eve 2020, they spread blankets on Zach’s living room floor and watched Harry Potter movies, and Zach asked Sowm to be his girlfriend. On New Year’s Day, they picked up Riley.
As for the accelerated timeline, “It was a little scary,” Sowm says. “I think when you feel that pull and that certainty with such little context, you’re like, Am I crazy?”
They took their first trip together, to a spot in South Carolina known as Pretty Place, for Valentine’s Day 2021. “It felt sort of like puzzle pieces moving into place, like, This is the kind of connection I am looking for,” Zach says.
By that April, they were living together. In August, the couple moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where Sowm worked on her startup through the Georgetown Venture Lab. They began talking about where they wanted to end up, and the conversation kept coming back to Boston.
Wherever their next move, the couple was ready to commit to each other forever. In the summer of 2023, they worked with a jeweler to design an engagement ring. “Being Indian, jewelry is very important,” she says. She chose three emerald-cut diamonds, symbolizing yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
That December, to celebrate both of their birthdays, they had a trip planned to Scotland, drawn by its Harry Potter-movie ties.
She flat out asked if a proposal was in store.
Your ring won’t be here in time, Zach told her. It was a fib. Not only did he have the ring, he’d connected with a photographer in Edinburgh about the perfect spot for a proposal.
On Sowm’s 30th birthday, Zach persuaded her to get up early to see the sun rise at the top of a hill. A woman approached Sowm, saying she was a photographer for a local newspaper. Could she take their picture?
“It was right as she was taking pictures of us that I got down on one knee — Sowm didn’t even register it for a moment,” Zach says.
The next summer, the couple moved to the South End. Sowm, who had since shut down her company, took a job at Whoop. She also completed an online master’s degree from Georgetown University. (Zach, still with Wells Fargo, works mostly remotely.)
In Boston, Sowm brought Zach to her favorite spots. They hosted Oscars parties, and saw movies at Coolidge Corner Theatre. Like Sowm, Zach fell in love with the city.
But at the same time, they struggled to plan their wedding.
A traditional Indian celebration is a days-long affair, with a huge guest list. But Sowm didn’t want their ceremony to feel like a “show.” They wanted to get married that December, their “month of all the big things,” and for it to be an intimate affair. (They decided to have a separate celebration with their families: A traditional Indian wedding and a multicultural reception will take place in North Carolina in June, with 300-plus guests.)
Sowm found an Airbnb in Cambridge, filled with movie posters and towering book shelves. She booked it in September 2025, for their December 29 wedding. (Appropriately, its location, she later realized, was on Valentine Street.)
A friend of the couple got ordained so she could marry them. Riley was in attendance, as were just two more friends. But before that, the bride had a surprise for her groom.
Weeks earlier, the Coolidge had begun a fund-raising campaign, offering naming rights to seats in its historic Moviehouse 1 in exchange for a donation.
“I bought the two best seats,” Sowm says.
On the morning of the ceremony, a friend picked up Zach to meet Sowm at a bar, he was told, for their pre-ceremony photos.
Instead, she drove him to the theater.
As the Coolidge’s speakers played a Spotify soundtrack Sowm had created, she approached Zach from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. “He turned and that was our first look,” she says. Then, she showed him the seats.
“It was perfect. It felt very true to us,” Zach says.
They headed to Cambridge for the ceremony, where friends had candles lit and music playing. “It was very much like a movie,” Sowm says.
There were nods to her heritage: a red velvet cake, because “red is such a significant color in Indian weddings,” and earrings gifted from her parents, which “made it feel like they were there.” After, they had cake and champagne with their guests.
With Boston now so interwoven in their story, the couple plans to buy a home here. For Sowm, it feels full circle, from Boston to Charlotte and back again. Like the three diamonds in her ring, the city represents her yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Read more from The Big Day and apply here to have your wedding featured in the column.
An earlier version of this story misstated the street name of the wedding ceremony venue.
Carrie Simonelli is a multiplatform editor at The Boston Globe. Reach her at carrie.simonelli@globe.com or on Instagram: @csimonelliedits.