Thiruvananthapuram, May 1 (IANS): At a time when weddings have become occasions to flaunt wealth, an IAS officer, who heads Kerala's Registration Department, decided to solemnise her marriage by getting it registered at her house in the presence of the couple's parents and very close relatives, numbering just ten people.

Shreedhanya Suresh, a 2019 batch officer, is presently posted as Inspector General of Registration, which deals with all registrations.

Suresh and Gayab Chand met while they were preparing for the Civil Service examination at an institute here in 2017. While she got through the exam, he got a job in the Kerala High Court and the two decided they would have a marriage under the Special Marriage Act.

"Since I have been in charge of the Registration Department since December last year, we felt that we should make use of the facility of getting married at one’s house and decided to have such a wedding," Suresh said.

The wedding took place at her house here on Tuesday and looking on as the couple signing the wedding register, under the watch of district Registrar General P.P. Ninan, was State Registration Minister Kadanapally Ramachandran.

After the couple completed the formalities, a cake was cut and shared among the 10 close relatives who were present on the occasion.

According to the Special Marriage Act, those wishing to get their marriages registered can do it at any of the Registrar's offices in the state and if one pays Rs 1,000 extra, the official will come home and get the marriage registered.

Chief Secretary Dr V. Venu and his wife and the state's second senior-most bureaucrat Dr Sarada Muraleedharan later visited the newly married couple and wished them well.