Good morning and welcome back dolls! Today our little wedding heaven AKA Editorial Blog is dedicated to the quintessential fairytale of Shrina and Jaydip! Lin & Jirsa Photography are the visual narrators who caught all the glory of their lavish nuptials we are about to enjoy! A Garba Raas celebration opened the festivities and for such a vibrant fun night, the beauty artist Bridal By Nisha prepared the hair and makeup looks of the bride-to-be and bridesmaids while the highly experienced bridal beauty expert Dolled up by Lulu beautified our Maharani in the hours leading up to the ceremony! Our Indian beauty slipped into a ravishing red lehenga and striking bejeweled shoes and headed to the majestic BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir to find her soulmate Jaydip for a sweet first encounter! The ultra-polished Raja was suited in a brocade attire while a golden and red turban crowned the kingly look that went perfectly well with the splendid walls and outdoors of their marriage site! Head to the gallery for more radiant images!
How did you meet your Groom and when did you know he was "the one"?
We met at college, towards the end of our freshman year. Our campus was holding a housing fair and one of my friends introduced me to Jaydip saying that he was Swaminarayan. They told me that he was Swaminarayan, but failed to mention that he was not as deeply devoted as I am. But that was our first meeting and then a few days later we met again in the laundry room. I was doing my chemistry lab report with one of my friends. Now Jaydip had all the lab reports from the upperclassmen that he always used and would simply copy and paste the information and substitute out the results with his results. He offered to give me that and I asked him for his phone number so I could text him when I was going to pick it up. Once I got his phone number, it was non stop texting from there till now. I knew he was the one once I met his family. The way he respected and loved his family and friends just left me in awe.
Share the scoop on your Proposal Story!
From back in our college days, I would always show Jaydip youtube videos of elaborate proposals. So he had a feeling that even though I am the most simple person in the world, I wanted an elaborate proposal. I also loved taking photos and memories of all the special occasions. My room was always decorated with photos from all of the recent events with everyone. That led Jaydip to come up with an idea of doing a walk down memory lane that led to the ultimate proposal. He went through 6 years worth of photos and memories and had selected 21 of them that meant the most to be blown up and printed individually on foam boards. With the help of our friends, we were able to write individual letters on the back of 15 cards that eventually spelled out "Will You Marry Me". He had picked the location of the walk to be Locust walk, a pretty familiar walk in University City, Philadelphia, PA that Jaydip and I would go on often. Throughout the walk, he had our friends and family members scattered throughout holding 1 of the photos at a time. As we went through the walk down memory lane, friends would head to the final location after we had gone through the memory that they were holding. At the end of the walk, all of our friends were organized to stand together with all of our memories. On his queue, they flipped the photos over to show the individual letters that eventually spelled out "Will You Marry Me?" while he was on my knees. Luck for him, I said yes!
Tell us how you went about planning your wedding, and your overall experience with the Venues, Hair & Makeup, Outfits, Decor Theme, and all of the other important details.
I can't say I did much of the wedding planning. Jaydip is definitely the diva in this relationship and took the reigns on planning and executing our magical wedding. We had always known we wanted to have Mayank Amin (from Platinum Dream Events), a friend, and college mate be our wedding planner. We trusted him with everything and he was amazing to spend several late night conference calls with him and Jaydip on east coast time and me on central time discussing the details of our wedding. A trip to California was much needed to meet all our vendors in person including the BAPS team at Chino Hills BAPS temple, Lulu Nguygen (from Dolled up by Lulu), Deepti Chandni (from Deeptis Floral), Sandeep Sandhu (from Fusion Sounds DJ & Lightning), and Laura (at Pacific Palms Resort), and Nisha Amin. We worked with Mike (from Lin and Jirsa) and Anisha Patel (from Shanti Scribe) remotely. We enjoyed working with all of our amazing vendors and we know that we wouldn't have wanted any other details of our wedding week to be any other way
How did you select your bridal lengha or wedding dress? Did you have a favorite color in mind?
We went to India for a very short 10 days with a mission to find all our outfits! We decided to make it a memorable trip for our families to get to know each other. My parents, my grandparents, his parents, and the two of us! We lived in one house and traveled in two vans to all the various cities. I always wanted to wear red with little gold or white. Jaydip loved his gold bling bling. So we're going to contrast. Even though I'm typically not picky, for some reason, it took me a while to pick out my dress. There were lots of options in Surat, India. But once I tried on the dress, I knew it was the one. it had little designs all throughout the bottom and it was perfect.
What was the most enjoyable part of the planning process, and why?
Our most recent adventure and wedding planning process together was going to India. With me living in Texas and Jaydip living in New Jersey, wedding planning has been challenging. But we embarked on a journey with both sets of parents and Shrina's grandparents to India. Ten days of pure craziness, little sleep was the plan. Several days were spent finding "the dress" and less than two hours for Jaydip to find his wedding outfit. It was the first (of hopefully many more) combined family vacations and we got to learn so much more about each other and our families.
What did your guests particularly love about your Wedding?
Our guests got to enjoy fresh coconuts during the wedding to help keep them cool in the warm, sunny California weather
Was there a really special moment in your wedding that constantly replays in your mind?
Our first look - seeing each other in our wedding outfits is a picture glued into my memory forever
For events other than your ceremony, please tell us as much as you would like about the decor, style, dances, and all the special details.
Our mandap was built outside the BAPS temple in a way such that the mandir would be our background. The yellow and peach colors were chosen to compliment the pink stone mandir. Jaydip loves sparkly and chandeliers so we had dangling crystals as the backdrop.
Our next feature is brimming with inspiration! Meet me in a bit.
