A newlywed couple in India attended their wedding reception the way most of us spend our mid-morning at the office: sitting in front of a laptop, on a Zoom call, and asking: “Can you hear us?”

Mr Medha Kshirsagar and Ms Sangama Das, both software engineers, had planned to fly from Bhubaneswar to Hubballi via Bengaluru for their grand wedding reception on Dec 2.

The two were married in Bhubaneswar on Nov 23, and the celebration in Hubballi was meant to be a formal post-wedding gathering for their families and friends.

But that plan was waylaid when India’s biggest airline, IndiGo,

began cancelling hundreds of flights

The newlyweds’ flight plan began slipping early on Dec 2 and continued to drift in a slow-motion collapse through the day.

At 4am on Dec 3, the couple learnt their flight had been cancelled outright.

With the reception venue already decorated and paid for, the event, as the bride’s mother put it, “could not be undone”.

So, they improvised.

The bride’s parents stepped in and took the couple’s ceremonial seats, performing the customary rituals, while the actual bride and groom appeared on-screen, waving from several states away.

Guests applauded politely. Some squinted at the feed. If not ideal, the concept was at least contemporary.

Footage of the event spread online, prompting a wave of commentaries.

One viewer imagined the couple’s first words in matrimony were not vows, but the familiar refrain of video calls everywhere: “Can you hear us?”