Hello, ladies! Today, we are excited to share the romantic and lovely wedding of Sangeetha & Shekhar. This celebration of love is one you will enjoy as it includes all the things we love: elegance, mixed emotions, beauty, and, above all, lots of bliss. So, get ready to start this journey! This lovely couple planned a magnificent celebration, beginning with a Sangeet at the Empire Banquet Hall, then a traditional Hindu ceremony, followed by an incredible reception. The storybook wedding spot Sangeetha & Shekhar chose was The Golf Club at Newcastle, a perfect place with stunning panoramic views and a majestic English Manor-style clubhouse. A truly spectacular location! We love how each event honored the bride and groom's culture, faith, and love for each other! And we know that planning a wedding ceremony is not easy, so we want to give Little Wedding Blush a big shoutout for the perfect planning and execution of all wedding events. Sangeetha trusted her beauty needs to Arianna Scott Makeup Artist, and Lalit Dalmia designed her wedding attires. She wore dazzling jewelry from Goodwill Collections and Much-More to crown her stunning looks, adding a traditional flair to her different attires. And oh, boy! We cannot stress how much we loved her different looks! For the reception party, our Maharani wore an incredible outfit from Chhabra. It was amazing! We must remember the beautiful melodies that Dj Adi used to set the ambiance for this reception. This lovely couple shined on the dance floor thanks to the Bollywood Dance with Akanksha and the welled choreographed dance. At the same time, the guests watched in amazement how a series of fireworks put together by PyroSpec enlightened this event. We have compiled the most beautiful moments captured by the incredible Rouge Studios! Head to our gallery for more.
How did you meet your Groom and when did you know he was "the one"?
Our story:
Shekhar moved to New York in February of 2020, completely unaware that his NYC experience would not pan out the way that he had imagined. While the rest of the world was sanitizing their vegetables, Shekhar was sitting alone in a one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, swiping on a dating app.
Sangeetha's once bustling life in the city came to a screeching halt during the pandemic, when she moved back home to Queens and became a country bumpkin. In an effort to revive her social life, she hopped on Coffee meets Bagel, not expecting what was going to happen next.
When they matched, Shekhar was looking forward to dropping the first line. He asked "Hey, hey, how's your isolation going?? Catching up on any fun shows?". Sangeetha responded with "This might be a little odd, but I'm actually watching a Korean drama." Little did she know that Shekhar was also in the same boat, and the rest is history.
They are currently on their 19th K-drama.
How did I know he was the one?
He once asked me if it was his pictures that got me to swipe right for him on the app. To his surprise, it was actually the part of his profile that said, “enjoys deep conversations.” Let’s just say I’m a skeptic so I was pleasantly surprised when that turned out to be true. We can have conversation that lasts hours about literally nothing and he’s my best friend. To me, that’s the hallmark of a great relationship.
Share the scoop on your Proposal Story!
Shekhar had to work extra hard on the proposal because I love being a detective. He rented out the rose garden at the New York Botanical Gardens from 5-6pm (this detail is important later). The plan, as far as I knew, was for me to meet my best friend, Nandhana, for brunch and kill some time in the city while Shekhar picked up his sister, who was visiting from Toronto, from the airport. We planned for the four of us to meet afterwards at the botanical gardens to see Yayoi Kusama’s exhibit, and head to a nice dinner afterwards.
For some reason, I didn’t think that Nandhana would be in on my proposal, so as soon as I met up with her, I tell her, “I think Shekhar is proposing to me today.” I really put her through the wringer because I showed up in black pants and a T-shirt and practically confessed that I knew he was proposing. I let her know that after our brunch, we should head back to my apartment so I can change into my dress. She was doing her best to get me out of the apartment as quickly as possible because I really wasn’t supposed to be there at this time. I wasn’t aware that Shekhar’s parents were in town for the proposal and that they all needed to be back at our place to get ready. They were now running late because of me.
Fast forward, Nandhana and I reach the botanical gardens at 5pm. Nandhana is “showing them our tickets” and for some reason, they kept saying we needed tickets although Nandhana mentioned we were going to the rose garden. Nandhana eventually typed a message for them saying, “she’s being proposed to at the rose garden. Her boyfriend rented it” and they proceeded to read the first half of that message aloud, but I didn’t hear where. For the sake of Nandhana’s sanity, I pretended not to hear anything they said. At around 5:20 pm, they finally let us in and it takes a little over 10 minutes to walk over to the rose garden.
He was waiting for me in front of the gazebo and I asked him where his sister was because I didn’t see her anywhere. To be honest, I didn’t expect that he would be proposing in the rose garden itself so I was surprised when he got down on one knee in front of the gazebo. Then his parents came out to us out of nowhere and I was definitely surprised and confused because I thought it would be his sister. I was completely overwhelmed by emotions and I was sobbing, and then I saw my parents also came out of hiding. So, despite me knowing that he was going to propose to me, he still somehow managed to surprise me.
My parents held a surprise party for us at their place afterwards. It was an amazing day for me, and a chaotic day for everyone else.
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.
We wanted a destination wedding and decided on Seattle because Shekhar lived there for a few years and Seattle holds a special place in his heart. We hired our wedding planner, Maddy (Little Wedding Blush) to help with figuring out which vendors to book for our wedding. I had done my own research for the makeup artist for myself and my bridesmaids and had decided on Arianna and her team. We visited Seattle a year before our wedding to choose our venue and fell in love with the view at the Golf Club at Newcastle.
My family and I flew out to Seattle a few months later just to try the food, as it was important to both of us and our families that the food tastes amazing. We wanted the cuisine to both represent Shekhar’s culture, whose parents are from Delhi, and mine, who are from Kerala.
Although planning a wedding from a distance was stressful at times, the rest of the wedding planning such as the decor theme, floral arrangements, cake design, etc. came relatively seamlessly as we decided to coordinate them with our outfits.
How did you select your bridal lengha or wedding dress? Did you have a favorite color in mind?
Shekhar and I decided to travel to India to do our wedding shopping. I was more or less set on choosing a cream colored lehenga with pastel embroidery. When we got to India and I started trying on lehengas, I soon found that those colors didn’t love me as much as I loved them. We just so happened to be walking around in Pitampura in Delhi and the Lalit Dalmia store caught our eye. I had already made the decision to get sage-colored sarees and kurtas for our wedding party. So when I tried on my wedding lehenga, which was a combination of maroon and sage, it just felt right despite it being a drastic change from everything I had envisioned until then. It felt like fate.
What was the most enjoyable part of the planning process, and why?
Shekhar and I had a large wedding party and we both had men and women in our respective parties. While getting the kurtas for the men were a breeze, it was very difficult to find 13 sarees that are sage green with just two of those thirteen sarees being a lighter shade than the rest, for our Maid of Honor and Best Woman. My mom and I ultimately made the decision to go to a fabric store to find the material for the blouses and the sarees. We had eleven of them dyed to a sage-green color while two were dyed to be a lighter pastel green. We then went to the bazaar to buy the borders for the sarees and the blouses. After we received the dyed material, we took everything we had, along with everyone’s measurements to our tailor. Although doing all of that work felt chaotic in the moment, I was happy to give our wedding party something that I had designed from scratch. I think I loved it because I felt like I was pouring my soul into giving our friends my best.
We did something similar for our wedding favors in creating our own personalized masala chai blend that was packaged into mini mason jars, along with specific instructions to brew the perfect tea. We wanted to put in effort to add a personal touch to the wedding favors that means something to us, that we hoped our guests could use and enjoy as well. It was also very validating for us to have people message us after the wedding for the chai recipe.
What did your guests particularly love about your Wedding?
Shekhar and I really pride ourselves on being good hosts. Our happiness comes from making sure others are having a great time and I think our guests enjoyed all aspects of the wedding. For a lot of our friends, it was their first Indian wedding, so we wanted to make sure that we represented our culture well. We focused on having great food—a South Indian fare during our ceremony, and a combination of North and South Indian cuisine for our cocktail hour and dinner. We put together more than 300 songs that represented who we were and our dance floor was bumping all the way till the end of the night.
Was there a really special moment in your wedding that constantly replays in your mind?
I think walking over to see the fireworks show that we didn’t tell our guests about, was the most memorable moment. It was the closest I’ve ever been to fireworks of that scale, and it was such a beautiful moment to share with all of my loved ones around me. I really think everyone was taken aback, and the night ended up being more than I could have ever asked for.
Do you have any words of wisdom for Brides-To-Be?
Definitely make a list of all the things you expect to have photographed, so your wedding planner and photography team can focus on getting those things done, as opposed to you having to remember and worry about those little things on your wedding day.
In the grand scheme of things, nothing matters more than you marrying the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with. I think it’s better to go in with the mindset that something might not go as the way you had planned it, in order to set yourself up for any disappointments that may or may not happen. Make sure to be present in the moment because everything just happens so fast, and it’s all over before you know it. Ultimately, none of the little things truly matter in comparison to you getting married to the person you love.
Maharanis, that is all for today! Come back tomorrow for more romantic stories and incredible tips!
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