Where are the photos? For every member of the media who wasn’t a part of the small, exclusive group that attended the wedding of Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh – which is to say almost everybody – the waiting game for photographs proved excruciating.

The photographs were the ultimate proof that the wedding did indeed take place in a castle on Lake Como in Italy over November 14 and 15. Padukone and Singh, who co-starred in the films Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013), Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018), had entrusted the responsibility of guarding against photographic and video leaks from what is an intensely private moment to the same wedding planners who had supervised the nuptials of Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli in December 2017.

The planners largely succeeded, except for one image making its way out. It showed some of the guests, including the groom and the bride’s father and badminton legend Prakash Padukone, looking in anger and amazement at a reckless photo-taker.

Two official photographs were finally shared by Padukone’s publicists a little after 8 pm. The squeals of excitement in newsrooms across the country could be heard as far as the Mangalyaan probe orbiting Mars. Padukone looked resplendent in her saris designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee, while Singh looked straight out of a pictorial book on Indian royalty. The wait was over for fans of the the couple unfortunately dubbed “DeepVeer”, and another vigil now begins – for the return to India and the obligatory photographs outside the international arrivals terminal in Mumbai.

Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone at their wedding.