Son Dev walks Jyotika down the aisle as she, Suriya renew vows: ‘Not a perfect marriage’ - The Indian Express

Actress Jyotika has shared a new set of photographs from the intimate vow renewal ceremony that she and husband Suriya held to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. The couple, who married on September 11, 2006, in Chennai, renewed their vows in a private ceremony attended by close family and friends, which they have called “The Sequel.”

The post comes hours after the couple broke the internet with a video from the ceremony that showed Jyotika walking down the aisle with their son Dev while their daughter Diya accompanied Suriya. The video, captioned “THE SEQUEL: A vow renewal, celebrating our 20 years of love and war,” went viral across social media platforms and trended on X.

In her latest Instagram post, Jyotika shared behind-the-scenes photos from the event and wrote a detailed note thanking the people who made it happen.

Her most personal thanks went to two of their friends, Indrajith and Tija Indarjith. “We cannot thank you enough. Without you both, this would have never happened,” Jyotika wrote. She addressed Indrajith directly, saying, “Family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes it’s about who shows up, again and again, without being asked. That’s you.”

Jyothika also thanked Lisa Bauer, whom she described as “our one-man show, wedding coordinator.” She credited Bauer with managing every logistical aspect of the ceremony across “countless WhatsApp threads,” from makeup and florists to invitations and travel, all while coordinating other weddings simultaneously. “Thank you for our sequel, Lisa,” she wrote.

She thanked a friend named Manoj “for all the endless coordination and the selfless love and time he’s given us,” and fashion designer Radhika Mehra “for designing us to look and feel special on our big day.” Jyothika noted that Mehra had worked on the couple’s outfits for three months.

The vow renewal was styled as an intimate Christian wedding ceremony, though neither Suriya nor Jyotika is Christian. The celebration was focused on the couple’s journey rather than religious convention. In her original post accompanying the video, Jyotika had made clear that the event was not a celebration of perfection. “This is not a celebration of a perfect marriage. This is a celebration of imperfections, of adjustments, of understanding, sacrifices, of loving each other selflessly. This is a celebration of ‘us.’ The people we have become for each other,” she wrote.

Suriya and Jyotika first met on the sets of Poovellam Kettuppar, while their friendship turned into love during the making of Kaakha Kaakha. They married on September 11, 2006, three days after the release of Sillunu Oru Kaadhal, the film in which they played a married couple. Suriya’s father, veteran actor Sivakumar, had initially opposed the match before eventually accepting it after Suriya told him he would never marry anyone else.

The couple have two children: daughter Diya, born in 2007, and son Dev, born in 2010. Jyotika took a nine-year sabbatical from acting after their marriage before returning with 36 Vayadhinile in 2015.