Harish Thiruvengadam and Swetha Sheiaengra.Photo: Swetha Shailendra
The first thing newlywed Rachna Nanda Kumar tells friends who weren’t able to travel to her out-of-state wedding is that a Ford F-150 powered her reception.
“Everything was going just as planned,” Kumar, a 26-year-old data scientist in Tulsa, tells PEOPLE. “Everything was perfect.”
Kumar and Chandrasekaran got around to planning the big day about a month ago, deciding to tie the knot on the groom’s 31st birthday.
“I love everything about her,” says Chandrasekaran, a mechanical engineer. “She knows what I’m thinking.”
Nanda Kumar and Vetrivel Chandrasekaran.Sarah Sutherland Photography
The storm eventually passed, and around 10 p.m., Bollywood music played as everyone danced and had a good time. Then came yet another challenge: suddenly, the power went out.
“The music stopped, everything just went dark. It just happened in an instant,” says wedding guest Harish Thiruvengadam, 35, a vehicle architecture specialist at Ford.
The couples together at the wedding.Sarah Sutherland Photography
“The power went out just when I thought the party was going well,” says the groom. “I was kind of sad that party was going to end even before I could enjoy it.”
But then Thiruvengadam remembered his truck has an onboard generator. He and wife Swetha Sheiaengra, a 30-year-old advanced vehicle engineer at Ford, bought the F-150 in February, and the couple had already used the generator during a couple power outages to run fans and a small refrigerator and charge devices.
Thiruvengadam told the groom he had an idea — he ran across the street and grabbed his blue, 2021 F-150 PowerBoost that has an on-board generator. He hooked up everything to his truck, flipped a switch and everything instantly came back on.
At the office the following week, word got to Thiruvengadam and Sheiaengra’s boss, the CEO of Ford, whotweeted the wedding video.
The groom now says the truck “saved the reception” and kept the party going until after 2 a.m., with almost a full tank of gas left to spare.
“It would be such a bummer that our friends would remember the wedding reception as the one where we had our power outage and we had to stop,” Thiruvengadam says. “I’m so happy that didn’t happen, and they could keep the party going.”
His wife adds that she hopes they — and their truck — get invited to more parties.
“It was a great day,” the bride says. “I had fun. I know everybody else had fun, so that’s all that mattered.”
source: people.com
