A couple getting married in India made headlines when they asked not for wedding gifts, but for guests to sign up as donors to an eye bank on their big day.

The Times of India (TOI) reported the couple said they wanted “blessings in the form of eye donation pledges only” in their invitations.

Saish Karapurkar, an entrepreneur from Panaji, Goa, and his fiancée Trupti Asolkar, a lecturer in biotechnology at Goa University told guests, “We have arranged counters in association with Rotary eye bank during our wedding reception for your convenience”, and asked people to donate their corneas generously.

The couple’s request apparently didn’t go down well with the older generation at first, as they felt it was inauspicious to speak of death and organ donations on one’s wedding day. However, Saish told TOI, “The concept was not very clear in their minds. Once I explained it to them, they found it to be a noble thing to do.”

Despite a population of 1.8 million, only 40 corneas have been harvested in Goa for transplantation since 2010.
The couple said they had pledged their corneas and major organs around five years ago and wanted to do something to encourage others, especially as only a fraction of people who pledged to donate organs actually ended up donating them. They said they wanted to become ambassadors for the cause and clear up some of the misconceptions around corneal donations.

The final decision on organ donation always rested with the family, said the couple, but it was prudent to make the cornea available within six hours of a person’s death and wearing glasses, cataract, blood group and some eye problems did not affect the eye donation process.

A few days after the wedding, TOI reported 55 guests had pledged their corneas.