Some weddings are planned around a venue. Others are planned around a feeling. Palak & Shikhar wanted their guests to arrive in paradise, leave with unforgettable memories, and spend every celebration surrounded by the people who mattered most. Mission accomplished. If you're dreaming of saying "I do" somewhere the ocean is your backdrop and every sunset deserves its own standing ovation, save this feature, share it with your wedding crew, and follow Maharani Weddings for even more destination wedding inspiration.
Sometimes, love stories begin unexpectedly. For Palak & Shikhar, it started during spring break at St. Bonaventure University, where they, as biology majors, found each other studying for finals while most students were away. A chance meeting in the cafeteria led to a study session that blossomed into friendship and eventually love. Over the years, their bond helped them navigate long-distance careers, medical residency, and software engineering promotions, ultimately leading them to a lifetime together. Shikhar's proposal was as romantic as their journey together. While on their first international trip, he surprised Palak at a rooftop restaurant with a view of Mount Etna in Taormina, Sicily. Under a stunning floral arch, he finally asked the question, creating a memory they will cherish forever.
Nestled along the sparkling shores of the Mexican Caribbean, JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa became the perfect setting for a wedding weekend that effortlessly blended vibrant Indian traditions with the relaxed elegance of a luxury beach destination. When selecting their venue, the couple prioritized one thing above all else: their guests. Rather than choosing an all-inclusive resort, they intentionally planned every meal throughout the weekend themselves, ensuring loved ones traveling internationally could enjoy an unforgettable experience without unnecessary expenses.
The planning journey, however, wasn't without challenges. Just three months before the wedding, their original planner unexpectedly stepped away, leaving the couple scrambling while balancing demanding careers and a long-distance relationship. Fortunately, our Platinum Guide member Utsav Planners stepped in and completely transformed the experience. Led by Rupali, alongside Emily and Samm, the team quickly reviewed contracts, coordinated vendors, and guided every detail with compassion and expertise. Equally deserving of applause was our Platinum Guide venue, JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa. More than just a spectacular backdrop, the resort embraced every aspect of a South Asian celebration, offering breathtaking spaces for each event while providing seamless hospitality from arrival through farewell. With turquoise waters, tropical gardens, and impeccable service, it's easy to see why Cancun remains one of the world's favorite destinations for Indian weddings.
The festivities began with a colorful Welcome Party, where guests were encouraged to arrive exactly as they were and celebrate together over authentic Mexican cuisine, a thoughtful tribute to the country hosting the festivities. The following morning brought deeply meaningful Grah Shanti and Haldi ceremonies before everyone headed to the beach for one of the happiest moments of the weekend: a vibrant Holi celebration, complete with clouds of colorful powder, laughter, and an unforgettable run into the Caribbean Sea.
That evening, guests entered a celestial dream for the Sangeet, with shimmering blue and gold decor and hundreds of suspended glass lights resembling a starry sky. Traditional Garba celebrated Palak's Gujarati roots, followed by an energetic dance floor that kept the festivities alive. What was meant to be a relaxed evening quickly became one of the weekend's most memorable celebrations. The wedding day started with an energetic Baraat, as guests gathered in a lush garden overlooking the ocean. Palak & Shikhar exchanged vows beneath a stunning gazebo adorned with roses and framed by Caribbean views. Rather than changing for the reception, Palak chose to stay in her bridal ensemble, personally thanking each guest who traveled to celebrate with them.
Palak's bridal style was equally meaningful. She always envisioned herself as a traditional bride dressed in timeless shades of red and gold, and worked alongside a designer from her hometown of Baroda, India, to create a one-of-a-kind lehenga. Every detail carried personal significance, from hand-embroidered elephants and dancing bride-and-groom motifs to the stitched outline of Akshar Deri Temple, a sacred place where she once prayed that she and Shikhar would one day marry. Her veil was bordered with a Gujarati blessing from her spiritual guru, while heirloom jewelry passed down from her parents beautifully honored both her Gujarati heritage and Shikhar's South Indian roots.
Palak looked absolutely radiant thanks to the talented team at Styling Trio, whose flawless hair and makeup beautifully complemented each celebration while allowing her natural joy to shine through. For décor, the bride designed much of the creative vision herself, sketching layouts and color palettes between demanding hospital shifts before seeing them brought to life by B3 Events and the Utsav team with breathtaking precision.
Guests also enjoyed an exceptional culinary experience prepared by Patravali Cancun, bringing authentic Indian flavors to the beaches of Mexico while honoring the couple's desire to thoughtfully care for every guest throughout the weekend.
As the Caribbean sun disappeared beneath the horizon, Kundan Events transformed the reception into a celebration no one wanted to leave. Bollywood favorites, timeless classics, and nonstop energy kept guests on the dance floor well into the evening, creating the perfect finale to an unforgettable destination wedding.
Adding a modern touch to the festivities, Pitt The Creator documented behind-the-scenes moments and candid celebrations through engaging wedding content creation, allowing the couple to relive countless spontaneous memories almost instantly.
very meaningful glance, a joyful embrace, and a breathtaking ocean portrait were beautifully preserved by Sweet Caribbean Photo, whose photography and cinematography captured not only how the wedding looked but exactly how it felt. Their cinematic storytelling perfectly balances intimate emotion with the grandeur of a luxury destination celebration, creating imagery the couple will treasure for generations.
When asked what moment she replays most often, Palak didn't choose the ceremony or the reception. Instead, she remembers wearing her beloved grandmother's wedding dress during her Grah Shanti ceremony. Surrounded by generations of love and faith, she felt as though her grandparents were celebrating beside her, making one of the quietest moments of the weekend one of its most unforgettable.
Palak & Shikhar's wedding reminds us that the most extraordinary destination celebrations are never simply about beautiful locations. They're about honoring family, embracing tradition, overcoming unexpected obstacles, and creating unforgettable memories with the people who matter most, all while beginning forever beside the person who has felt like home since the very first study session.
How did you meet your Groom and when did you know he was "the one"?
We met at St. Bonaventure University, both of us biology majors, so I guess you could say the chemistry was there from day one, haha!
It was spring break of my freshman year. While everyone else went home or somewhere warm, we both stayed on campus to study for finals. Shikhar, or as most of us call him, Shiki, first saw me in the cafeteria that day, and he still says it was love at first sight. Later that evening, I was hanging out with a friend who brought along someone who happened to be Shiki's friend too, and who already knew he liked me. So, he brought him along, and just like that, we finally met.
I needed a little more than a glance across a cafeteria to be convinced, so the universe gave us a study session instead. We spent the next day together with our books open, though I barely remember what we studied. Somewhere between the flashcards and the quiet conversation, I found myself falling for him without even realizing it was happening.
We became best friends first, and love grew slowly and surely from there, the kind that sneaks up on you rather than announces itself. There was no single moment I can point to and say that was it. It was more like waking up one day and realizing I could not imagine my life without him in it.
He was my first boyfriend, and I am endlessly grateful he is also my last. Some people spend a lifetime searching for "the one". I found mine studying biology in a nearly empty campus, during a spring break I almost didn't stay for.
Share the scoop on your Proposal Story!
Shiki proposed in Taormina, Sicily, and it could not have been more perfect.
We had watched White Lotus together, and from that moment on I could not stop talking about how badly I wanted to go explore Taormina myself. I had actually just been to Italy with my cousins a couple months before and fell completely in love with the country, so I was already dying to go back, this time with Shiki. It ended up being our first ever international trip together, which made it even more special.
He brought me to this absolutely beautiful corner of Sicily, and I had no idea what was coming. Here is a fun fact about us: Shiki never actually asked me to be his girlfriend, because our relationship happened so naturally that it never felt like something we needed to formally declare. But he always said that when it came time to ask me to be his fiancée, he knew he had to go all out. And he truly did.
He proposed on a rooftop restaurant with a stunning view of Mount Etna in the distance, under a gorgeous flower arch he had arranged, and it was clear just how much thought and planning had gone into every single detail. Afterward, we spent the rest of the evening walking around Taormina, completely in love and soaking in how beautiful Sicily is.
It is a memory I will treasure forever, the place where he finally, officially, asked me to be his.
Tell us how you went about planning your wedding, and your overall experience with the Venues, Hair & Maqueo, Outfits, Decor Theme, and all of the other important details.
We planned our wedding at the JW Marriott Cancun from April 10 to 12, 2026, and looking back, I am so grateful for every twist and turn that led us there, even the stressful ones.
When we started venue hunting, our biggest priority was our guests. So many of them were already making the effort to travel internationally for us, and we did not want them to also feel burdened by inflated costs once they arrived. That is why we intentionally moved away from all-inclusive pricing packages and instead planned every single meal ourselves across the three days, making sure our guests were thoughtfully fed and taken care of without hidden markups. Shiki’s parents were incredibly helpful throughout the location selection process, and we are so grateful for the time and effort they put into helping us. When we couldn’t make the trip to Mexico ourselves, they went in our place to visit venues and help us find the perfect location for our wedding. The JW Marriott Cancun offered incredible pricing and, more than that, they were a genuine pleasure to work with. They provided us with a planner to help coordinate vendors, along with an extensive preferred vendor list that made an overwhelming process feel far more manageable.
That said, our planning journey was not without heartbreak. We originally hired a wedding planner we loved, but just three months before our wedding, she had to step away due to family issues. I will be honest, that news devastated us. As a physician in the middle of residency training and with Shiki being promoted to principal software engineer, we already had so little free time to devote to wedding planning, and we were already racing against the clock. Losing our planner at that stage felt like losing our footing entirely. But this is where I have to give an enormous, heartfelt thank you to the JW Marriott team, because they moved quickly and connected us with Utsav Planners, a team who had previously executed a South Asian wedding at their property. Rupali, our main planner, along with her incredible team, Emily and Samm, completely changed the trajectory of our planning experience. With only three months on the clock, they set up biweekly meetings with us, carefully reviewed every vendor contract we had signed, and took over communication with our vendors so we could breathe again. Shiki was living in California, and I was in the middle of residency in Florida, so on top of the tight timeline, we were planning long-distance for most of it. Rupali and her team understood the emotional weight of that too, and they gently helped mediate communication between us whenever the distance made things harder. I do not think I can put into words how grateful I am to them. They did not just plan our wedding; they saved it, and I recommend them to anyone who will listen.
For hair and makeup, I did my trial with Styling Trio during our site visit, and I knew immediately we had found the right team. They were talented, warm, and incredibly patient, and they ended up doing makeup for me and several of my family members on the wedding days. For decor, I poured myself into designing much of it on Canva, sketching out color palettes and layouts late at night between hospital shifts. I am so thankful that Utsav Planners also had a strong decor background, because they took my scattered vision boards and brought them to life more beautifully than I could have imagined.
Our wedding unfolded across several events, each one with its own personality and its own piece of our story.
Welcome Party:
Since this was the day most of our 200 guests were arriving from their travels, I wanted it to feel effortless and joyful, no dress code, no pressure, just come exactly as you are. It was vibrant and colorful, and we spent the entire evening dancing with the people we love most. For dinner, we served Mexican food prepared by the JW Marriott, because I wanted our guests to also fall in love with the culture of the country generously hosting our celebration. I was, after all, planning a South Asian wedding on Latin American soil, and it felt only right to honor that.
Grah Shanti, Haldi, and Holi:
The next morning began with our Grah Shanti and Haldi ceremonies, intimate and rooted in tradition, followed by an explosion of color and joy with Holi on the beach. I always knew I wanted at least one event to fully embrace that stunning oceanfront setting, and Holi felt like the most joyful way to do it. We threw color into the air, laughed until our cheeks hurt, and ran straight into those gorgeous turquoise waters together. With 200 of our closest family and friends surrounding us, it truly was one of the most joyful afternoons of my life.
Sangeet:
That evening, we hosted our Sangeet, and if I am being honest, Shiki and I had originally hoped to keep the dancing and high-energy events to a minimum, knowing how tiring they can be for everyone, ourselves included. That plan did not exactly work out, and I would not change a thing. We designed the evening around a starlight and celestial theme, with hundreds of individual glass lights hand hung from the ceiling to mimic a sky full of stars. Walking into that room for the first time genuinely took my breath away. We wove in my Gujarati heritage through a Garba following our dance performances, transitioned into a classic sanedo, and then opened the floor for everyone to dance the rest of the night away. Between the decor, the color palette of blue and gold, and my outfit that night, the Sangeet remains my favorite celebration of the entire weekend.
Baraat, Wedding, and Reception Dinner:
Our final day started with a fun, high-energy baraat led by Shiki and his family, followed by our evening wedding ceremony and an elegant reception dinner. We intentionally kept the reception more understated, since our Sangeet had already given everyone the celebration and dance floor moment they needed. I wore my wedding outfit straight into the reception as well. I had fallen so in love with it, and invested so much into every detail, that changing simply did not feel right. Instead, I used that time to walk around and personally thank each and every guest who had traveled near and far to celebrate with us, something I will always treasure being able to do. The wedding theme was a romantic wash of reds, pinks, and roses, set beneath a gazebo overlooking the ocean within a lush garden. It was, without question, one of the most breathtaking backdrops I could have ever imagined for the moment I married my best friend.
How did you select your bridal lengha or wedding dress? Did you have a favorite color in mind?
I always knew, without a doubt, that I wanted red and gold. There was never really a debate in my mind. I loved the traditional bridal look and had always envisioned myself as a classic, traditional bride on my wedding day.
Since I was born in Baroda, India, it felt deeply important to me that my wedding dress come from the very place I was born. I set out to find a designer there and came across Gopi Patel, an up-and-coming local designer in Baroda, and from our very first conversation I knew she understood the vision I was carrying in my heart. Together, we designed my lengha from top to bottom. I have always loved elephants, so we incorporated them throughout the dress. I wanted rich, hand-stitched gold work on a red base, and Gopi made sure every inch reflected that. I also wanted a piece of Shiki and me woven into the design itself, so she included an embroidered depiction of a bride and groom dancing in parts of the dress, a quiet nod to our own love story stitched into the fabric.
Faith is at the center of who I am. I am a devoted member of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha, and there is a temple in Gondal, India, called Akshar Deri that holds an incredibly special place in my heart. Both of my grandparents' ashes rest in Gondal, and I have such vivid memories of standing at that exact temple, praying that I would one day marry Shiki. That place has always given me a deep sense of peace, a place that has always felt like home, and a place where I once quietly hoped my relationship with Shiki would grow into something lasting. I wanted that history reflected on my dress, so Gopi hand-stitched the outline of that very temple into the fabric. Seeing it there, on the dress I would marry him in, brought everything full circle in a way I cannot fully put into words.
I wore my veil delicately over my head throughout the ceremony, bordered with a golden hand-stitched inscription written in Gujarati by my spiritual guru, Mahant Swami. Translated, it reads, "I live as an ideal devotee of God and dedicate myself to serving Him." Having those words with me that day meant everything, because I wanted to carry God into my ceremony in the most literal sense, the same God who I believe brought me the greatest person to spend my life with. My identity has always been rooted in devotion and service to God, and I wanted that thread to carry forward into my marriage as well. To me, marriage was never just about the celebration itself. It is about building a life centered on faith, service, and devotion, together.
Every piece of jewelry I wore that day carried its own story. My gold was lovingly gifted to me by my dad in the final moments before the wedding, a quiet gesture between us that I will hold onto forever. There was something so tender about that timing, my father placing gold around my neck just before I walked toward the next chapter of my life, as if he was giving me one last piece of him to carry with me. I also wore anklets and rings that had been given to me by my mom, the exact pieces she herself wore on her wedding day decades ago. Putting them on felt like stepping into a lineage of love, wearing the same gold that once adorned her as she began her own marriage, now passed down to me as I began mine. I made sure to weave in jewelry inspired by South Indian tradition, choosing necklaces designed to honor Shiki's heritage alongside my own. It felt like the most natural way to bring both of our families and cultures into one look. Our wedding ceremony itself was a beautiful blend of Gujarati and South Indian tradition, and in that same spirit, my jewelry became a quiet love letter to both of our heritages, worn together, exactly as we now were.
Was there a really special moment in your wedding that constantly replays in your mind?
One moment I keep replaying in my mind is the morning of my Grah Shanti, when I wore my grandmother's, my Baa's, wedding dress.
Grah Shanti is one of those ceremonies that often gets overshadowed by the bigger, flashier events of a wedding week, but it holds so much depth if you slow down and sit in it. It is essentially a ceremony of blessings and preparation, where prayers are offered to the planets and to God, asking for a smooth path ahead, for obstacles to be cleared, and for the marriage to be blessed with harmony from the very start. It is quiet, it is intentional, and it is deeply spiritual, a moment where you pause before the whirlwind of celebration and simply ask the universe to be gentle with this new beginning.
So, when I decided to wear my Baa's wedding dress that same morning, it felt like the ceremony and the outfit were speaking the same language. Her dress was not just fabric and thread; it was history, it was every prayer she must have whispered on her own wedding day, it was decades of love that had somehow made its way down to me. I grew up in my grandparents' arms; they practically raised me, and putting on something that once held her in her own version of this exact moment made me feel like she was standing right there beside me, holding my hand the way she always had. This moment carried an extra layer of emotion because my grandfather, my Dada, had passed away just a year before our wedding. So much of that morning was filled with joy, but there was also a quiet ache beneath it, a wish that he could have been there to see it too. Wearing my Baa's dress felt like holding both of them close at once, celebrating the love they built together while gently missing the piece of it that was no longer physically with us.
We took pictures together that day, my Baa and me, both of us separated by decades but somehow feeling like the same girl on the same nervous, hopeful morning. I remember looking at her and just laughing and crying at the same time. I like to think that dress was a little bit magic, carrying every ounce of love she poured into her own marriage straight into mine.
Do you have any words of wisdom for Brides-To-Be?
Enjoy the process and try to love every moment of it. Wedding planning can feel overwhelming at times, but it all goes by so quickly. Our wedding had its fair share of ups and downs, from planners quitting to vendors not working out and countless last-minute decisions. But looking back, I don’t remember any of that. What I remember is having fun, being surrounded by the people I love, and enjoying every moment of the day. So take a step back, soak it all in, and remember that this is such a special time in your life. The little details may not always go as planned, but in the end, it’s the memories you make and the love you share that you’ll remember most.
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