Siddharth Sharma’s House On The Clouds (HOTC) has filmed 400 weddings in the last decade. Their glittering portfolio includes celebrity unions — Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor’s intimate home ceremony, Kiara Advani and Siddharth Malhotra’s Jaisalmer celebration, and most recently, Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda’s traditional Telugu wedding.
The secret to their inimitable stamp? Quite simple really. Sharma films weddings as if he belongs, like he’s more of a friend than a vendor.
All in the Details
A former techie, Sharma founded HOTC in 2016. While the company scaled quickly — he was shooting nearly 30 weddings after his very first gig — the early days were marked by doubt and apprehension.
“I’m not very social; I’m sort of an introvert. Weddings didn’t seem like the perfect space for someone like me,” he says with a smile over a Zoom call with The Hollywood Reporter India. But along the way, what changed was perspective. Sharma found meaning not just in documenting the happiest days of people’s lives, but in shaping how they are remembered.
“There is no point in doing this if we’re not able to change something,” Sharma believes. For HOTC, this change meant redefining storytelling and shifting focus. Weddings, he says, are rarely just about the couple. “When there’s a wedding, people just focus on the two humans who are getting married. But there are a lot of things that are part of the story which are usually ignored,” he says.
What’s the time of the year like? What are the flowers used at the venue, and who are the special furry companions to the humans saying their I dos? “If there’s a cat running around, that becomes a part of your story. If there are some kids playing somewhere else, they’re also part of the story.”
At Alia Bhatt’s wedding, one such moment, a photograph of her posing with her cat, Edward, became a fan favourite. Moments and details like these, Sharma notes, define the emotional truth of a wedding, especially homestyle weddings, where the subjects are the most comfortable in their skin.
Home and Away
Few weddings illustrate this better than Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor’s intimate ceremony. Sharma describes their cosy celebration in their Bandra apartment in Mumbai as one of the most personal weddings he has shot. “The proximity creates a certain invisible bond. You’re observing people up close for a few days. You’re not a photographer anymore; after day one, you are part of the whole celebration. People will come and meet you, greet you and remember you by name when they talk to you,” Sharma says.
Celebrating their biggest day at home also unlocks a deeply emotional reaction for both brides and grooms, he says.
Risk Factor
Sharma doesn’t distinguish between celebrity and non-celebrity weddings, but he does note one difference: Artistes are a different species, ones with appetites to experiment. “Their tolerance for trying something new is high and that is what excites us,” says Sharma.
During actors Pulkit Samrat and Kriti Kharbanda’s wedding film, they routinely cleaned up the audio, including Samrat’s speech, on the edit table. Kharbanda, who loved the video, had one request.
“Kriti came back and said, ‘That’s not how I heard the speech. When I heard Pulkit’s speech, there was an echo and I was able to hear people talking. I was able to hear your photographer clicking too. And I want all that because that’s how I experienced that moment’.”
For Sharma, the takeaway is clear. The job then, is to not just make a film, but to make sure people can relive that moment.
Ironically, for someone immersed in film circles, Sharma isn’t much of a film buff. His approach is more instinctive: don’t direct and don’t interfere. “They’re used to being directed day and night. You can advise them based on your experience, on what works and what doesn’t work. We prefer a fly-on-the-wall approach.”
The team does offer guidance. The advice might be anything from changing the direction of the mandap or changing the type of lights (as they did at Bhatt and Kapoor’s home wedding). More often than not, stars pay attention to feedback. A recce makes this process a lot easier. “For Alia’s wedding, we went to her house a day before, saw the space, and the light. And since it was a tight space, the kind of lenses we chose mattered,” says Sharma.
Man With a Plan
Some of HOTC’s most “candid” images are carefully anticipated. A widely loved, fan-favourite shot from Mandanna and Deverakonda’s wedding carousel, of the couple walking away, hand-in-hand, was premeditated. “We wanted that shot. So, we had to make sure that there was a photographer there, a filmmaker standing behind [them].”
Still, Sharma embraces unpredictability. “We shoot a lot of weddings on handicams, smaller cameras; it gives that home-video feel. The video is not perfect, the audio is not perfect, it’s not that clean and crisp, but the imperfection makes it feel so personal,” he says.
The first wedding picture that Bhatt posted on Instagram, Sharma recalls, was a blurry image. “As a photographer, you know that a shot which isn’t in focus shouldn’t go out. But celebrities aren’t looking at the technical perfection; what they’re looking at is the emotion behind it.”
The philosophy extends to more experimental frames, like a motion-blurred shot of Deverakonda on horseback. “We wanted to capture the motion of the horse. If you are very perfect, then it’s just a person sitting on a horse, but when you let go of your perfect frame, things shift,” says Sharma.
So, did the actor make his wedding entry on horseback? “Yes,” Sharma answers, not letting any other details slip. This restraint is something that the photographer wears almost like a badge of honour. After all, his job is built on trust and confidentiality.
Keeping the Faith
“These are very private people and they like keeping things private. One of the reasons artistes choose us is because of the trust factor. That is the only thing that keeps me awake at night a lot of times, to make sure that we don’t disclose anything.”
Maintaining privacy can be challenging in celebrity weddings. But HOTC enforces a no-compromise approach. “None of the team members know who we are shooting until we land at the wedding. The planning happens a day before; just one or two people in the whole company will know. Once the wedding is done, the data is then handled by only one person. It always stays in a certain house. There are some processes we have to follow,” he reveals.
Any breach to this watertight system is the stuff of nightmares. Quite literally for Sharma. “You know, sometimes I have nightmares about this,” he says with a laugh. “But now we have processes in place.” Sharma does feel both the weight of fulfilment and of privilege, being in this profession. “Some of these people still text me whenever they see our work. It’s a thing of privilege to have and build such relationships.” It’s something he wants to hold on to forever.