We Met at Math Camp
Your love story
Nimish and I met at pre-calculus summer camp when we were 15 years old. We didn’t talk much at camp because he was easily the smartest student in the class. He’d finish every problem first and never got a question wrong. He tried to sit next to me one day, but I got up and moved because I was incredibly intimidated. Still, he got my attention.
About 10 months later, on April 11, 2009, we met at the Youth Group Talent Show at the Hindu Temple in Kansas City. He had completely forgotten about meeting me at math camp and re-introduced himself. After the event, all the performers around our age went to dinner at Applebee’s. By luck (or maybe fate), Nimish ended up across from me that night. We exchanged numbers and started texting the next day. A few months later, we became inseparable.
One beautiful thing about our story is that Nimish and I always made life choices on what was best for ourselves—we chose universities and jobs in different cities, which amounted to 2 years in high school in the same city and 7 years of living in different cities. Nothing about these choices was convenient or easy, and I can’t say I would recommend it to others, but I truly believe if you were meant to be with someone, there are no number of miles or anything that can keep you from that special someone.
In July 2018, after 9 years, we moved into a beautiful apartment in Manhattan, NY together. We got married shortly after 10 years of being together. I always say, I must have done something right in a past life for Nimish to be my soulmate, and I am so excited for what our future holds.
What was your and your partner’s vision for your big day?
Unlike a lot of grooms, Nimish wanted to be involved in every aspect of the planning process, which made everything so much more fun and exciting. We wanted our wedding to be packed with lots of personal details about our relationship and who we are as individuals. We wanted to make every decision and detail intentional and prioritize our guest experience. Even though it’s our wedding and in theory it should be about us, we wanted everyone to have a great time and remember our wedding with happy memories. We felt if we didn’t prioritize the guest experience, we might as well elope or do a more intimate event. We also wanted to shake things up—whatever people expected of our wedding, we tried to do something different. One of the simplest examples of how we chose to be slightly different is most people have welcome bags for their guests at their hotel, but we switched the bag to a white box which resembled our invitation cover. Each guest received their own box so they didn’t have to share any of the food, treats or drinks inside.
How did you decide on your venue?
Since both of us grew up in Kansas City and both sets of our parents are still there, we thought it would be most convenient to get married there. Indian weddings have so many elements and days that if we did a destination wedding, we knew we’d sacrifice a lot of the elements our families had been dreaming of when they imagined our weddings. My parents really wanted as many of our friends and family as possible to attend, and since our guest list was spread across 30+ states and 4 countries, it ended up making sense to have our wedding in the center of the US.
Getting married in a smaller wedding market is always challenging since there isn’t as much infrastructure for Indian weddings. Nonetheless, we had a few options of venues that could accommodate up to 1000+ people. While we anticipated our final guest count to be about half that, the more space the better for a crowd of this size. Once you add in décor, tables, a dance floor, food, etc. you really need a lot of space to not feel crammed. We prioritized being able to bring in an outside caterer, which isn’t common in the Kansas City area.
I really wanted to have our wedding at the Downtown Marriott Kansas City for many reasons. After some fierce negotiations, we were the first event approved to bring in an outside caterer at the Downtown Marriott Kansas City. They had bought a boutique hotel next door, which unlike a lot of venues, meant they had two huge ballrooms with different aesthetics. It also meant they had two towers of hotel rooms, two kitchens (one of which was used by our catering team), twice the number of several smaller event spaces for smaller groups, twice the number of meeting rooms that could be used for storage for décor, etc. I also loved that the main lobby had a big, grand entrance with fountains (which Kansas City is known for) and a lounge/meeting room with a private, built-in set of restrooms that could be used as a hospitality room for snacks/drinks/mingling at check in and between events. Right outside the main lobby is a beautiful, covered circle drive, and across the street is Barney Allis Plaza, which is an outdoor park that we rented separately for the day for the baraat and photos. I also noticed that the areas directly outside their ballrooms was an exceptional amount of space, which would allow for a very open cocktail hour as opposed to our guests being crammed in a foyer space before the reception doors opened.
Tell us about the vision you had for your wedding—theme, overall feel, food, décor, etc.
SANGEET/GARBA:
When we were planning our wedding, a lot of the inspiration we were seeing for sangeets and garbas were just an explosion of color. We had seen it so many times and felt like our guests would probably expect something similar, so we wanted to do something completely different. By the time we got engaged, we had been to 12 countries together, so we wanted to pull inspiration from our favorite trips to Morocco and Egypt for our Sangeet.
One thing we learned from Pinterest is that we always leaned towards inspiration in which the carpet/floor of the venue goes with the décor. A lot of wedding vendors recommend ignoring the carpet because when everything comes together, you forget about the carpet, but we couldn’t disagree more. Décor generally looks more cohesive when it looks like you intentionally chose every piece. That’s why some couples opt to recarpet their venues. The ballroom we chose for the sangeet had a navy/ivory/beige/gold carpet with rust and white marble on the walls. This went hand in hand with our Moroccan/Egyptian vibe. We chose champagne, beige, and desert themed textiles for our tablecloths, succulents and sand themed centerpieces, and focal points with inspiration from Morocco and Egypt (i.e. a two sided Moroccan rust colored rug wall for guests to take pictures in front of), and an Egyptian temple inspired stage and backdrop for our DJ booth.
Since the décor was more neutral, I wanted Nimish and I to be the focal point during the program. My stunning lehenga from Khajana Boutique fit our theme perfectly. A fully embroidered skirt with yellow, orange and red threadwork, with copper embroidery and sequins was more than I could have ever imagined. It came with a gorgeous keyhole brocade green halter illusion blouse with red and white beadwork details on the neckline, a deep green gotapati velvet strapped back, and a gorgeous heavily embroidered maroon dupatta. Since we were coordinating looks for our immediate families, it also gave my family several colors to pull from for their looks. Nimish went with a look fit for a raja in a yellow double layered kurta/ sherwani combo from Kora by Nitesh Mitesh that popped the yellow from the center of my outfit and made him really stand out on our dance floor.
Being Gujarati and having grown up in the competitive garba and folkdance world, garba is something I could not get married without. I come from a family that really values dance. My mom and her sister were professional dancers with a dance company in India, and they performed in the background of several movies and on tour throughout India. Most of my aunts and uncles are either still performing on dance teams or are judging garba/folkdance competitions across the US. When we got married, my brother was the captain of WashU Raas, so his team performed at the event before we opened the dancefloor for garba. Since the décor was also more neutral, I bought multicolored dandiya—not two pairs looked alike, and the dance floor really lit up with everyone’s colorful outfits and dandiya.
CEREMONY/RECEPTION:
Nimish always felt like baraats in the US were underwhelming and anticlimactic compared to ones he’d seen in India. So, we used the park across the street from the venue to host the baraat, which allowed for a lot more space and a longer path to the venue. Instead of doing the receiving at the door of the venue in the circle drive as many Indian weddings do, we decided to do the receiving in front of a fountain inside the venue by a circular set of stairs my family was waiting on.
Nimish is Rajasthani and we knew much of his extended family would not be able to attend our wedding since they live in India, so we wanted to pay homage to them by keeping the theme like an outdoor wedding at a palace in Rajasthan. Prashe Décor created the perfect open mandap design with a beautiful white facade with lots of vines across the backdrop and a structure with lots of candles for the front of the stage. A lot of ceremony inspiration we were coming across had a ton of flowers, so we again made a choice to be different and keep the flowers at an incredible minimum. Instead, we opted for lots of greenery. We did a vinyl stage and aisle to help translate our vision for outdoor tiles. We positioned the ivory and gold Chiavari chairs diagonally from the center so there would be no issues with visibility of our aisle markers blocking their views of the stage. Our aisle markers were mostly large gold structures, candelabras and small trees with lights, candles and vines, and these were used as centerpieces for the reception décor.
For the ceremony lunch, most people are used to seeing circle tables, so we switched it up with oval tables, to allow for more intimate conversations, since it’s the quietest meal of the whole wedding weekend.
For the reception, we went with deep green tablecloths over a mixture of rectangle, round and square tables, which made the large number of tables look more dynamic. Our stage remained intact from ceremony to reception, but we moved the matching vinyl DJ booth to the stage and swapped the aisle for a large dancefloor, covered in green and gold vinyl, inspired by the floor in the Bollywood music video of Ghar More Pardesiya, which my mom and aunts performed at the reception.
FOOD:
We figured one way to keep your guests from complaining is to constantly keep their mouths occupied with food and drink. We knew food would be the most expensive part of our budget, but it was the most important vendor for us. We hired celebrity Chef, Gaurav Anand, who owns several restaurants in the NYC area, and creates the most incredible culinary experiences for wedding events. To this day, I haven’t seen another caterer of any cuisine who can create his style and caliber of everything from passed appetizers, buffets, live stations, family style meals and multi-course plated meals. His food is always authentic flavors, unique items, and presented beautifully. We love attending the weddings of friends who have also since hired him because he does something different every single time and is always introducing new menu items.
For our sangeet/garba, since the décor was far from Indian, we wanted to do more Indian themed food for the menu, so we did 6 live food stations, each featuring a different type of Indian cuisine. The food stations were all canopy style tables with sand under the glass and all the food was featured on copper settings.
After the baraat, we had food outside our ceremony hall so people wouldn’t be starving during the ceremony. We did aloo tikki sliders, cucumber sandwiches, mango lassi in glass milk bottles with paper straws, and fresh French fries. Upon entering the ceremony venue was a little pouch with our favorite candies (mine were Cadbury flakes and buttons from the UK and Nimish’s were Trolli gummy worms and jelly beans) with a little note from Nimish and me and a napkin (our guests appreciated the napkin more than anything)! For our ceremony lunch, since the décor was more Rajasthani, we went with a more traditional Gujarati menu, but with a few fun twists. Our crowd favorite was the orange shrikhand.
For cocktail hour, we did more live stations with my favorite chaat type foods. My favorite was the assorted pani puris with 4 types of pani. For our reception, we wanted to do something different than a typical buffet, so we started with 2 plated courses during the reception program. When the reception doors opened, we first lured guests to their seats by having our first course, a martini glass with beetroot raita, crispy okra and pomegranate seed garnish, waiting for them. We then had a second course, our palette cleanser, which was a passionfruit sorbet, come around on dry ice. When the program ended, and we opened for food, we had a buffet with some items, more live stations with international foods, and 30+ item international dessert display. We decided to go for more of an international menu for our reception, to say now we’re married, let’s go enjoy the world together.
What was your bridal look vision? And how did it all turn out the day of?
For my Sangeet/Garba, I was really interested in wearing my hair in a glamorous ponytail so I could dance as much as I wanted to without hair in my face and staying as cool as possible. It worked out perfectly that my Khajana blouse had a high neck, and I’d show off the back perfectly with a ponytail. I wanted to pull from the colors of my dress for my makeup, and I wanted something bold and colorful. I have warm undertones in my skin, so I knew going in the warm color family would really give me that bridal glow. Red seemed to be too obvious, so I went with the orange color in the lehenga. It’s more daring than I’ve ever been with makeup before, but with so many events, I had many opportunities to play with different colors, lash, and hair styles. Overall, I had a blast making every one of my bridal looks completely distinct and a showcase a different side of my personality.
Tell us about the experience of finding your dream dress at Khajana boutique?
Having an enthusiastic fiancé meant always shopping together for each other’s outfits. Not knowing much about the different stores in Iselin, we decided to explore as many stores in the area as possible to gage quality, style, selection, and pricing. Khajana Boutique’s exterior and window display pulled me in immediately. I could tell just from seeing the window display that the outfits were incredibly well made and fashion forward. Upon opening the door, you smell this beautiful fragrance (which is a custom scent the boutique sells to raise money for charity), and it’s hard to not be impressed by all the outfits.
Because Khajana is a boutique, every outfit is unique, and there is an incredible variety of different styles and types of outfits. Hanging on one of the racks on the upper floor was a stunning long sleeve black blouse with a skirt with thick horizontal stripes of different colors and patterns of brocade fabric. I picked up the hanger and I was surprised by how lightweight and beautifully made the outfit was. I couldn’t wait to try it on. Once I stepped out of the dressing room, the staff at Khajana clipped the blouse in the back so perfectly, it felt like it was my size and I could freely move around to get a sense of how it would feel at an event. I immediately fell in love and decided to buy the outfit for my engagement party.
When I came back to pick up the dress after alterations, my fiancé and I started exploring the heavier bridal outfits, and I was immediately drawn to the scallop embroidery and blouse style of what would be my future sangeet outfit. We were slated to travel to India for the engagement party and go shopping for wedding events in a couple of weeks, and I had initially planned to buy all my outfits in Mumbai, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. However, I tried the outfit on in store and didn’t want to take it off. I knew looking at all the colors and style of embroidery, I wouldn’t be able to find anything that could compete with it in India, even at the designer shops. I also knew I would never get bored looking at the outfit because there were so many beautiful details in the textiles and embroidery. Once I made the choice to purchase the outfit, it was altered and went through a rigorous finishing process where it was cleaned and polished up to brand new.
I should also mention Khajana has the best garment bags. They are super high quality with thick material made to protect the garment for years, a very strong zipper and when it folds up, there is a super strong Velcro. When it came time for my friends and family to find their outfits for our wedding, we recommended Khajana Boutique to all of them because of how fantastic our experience was. When brides ask me where I recommend, they shop for their bridal outfits in the US, I always recommend Khajana Boutiqe, regardless of what part of the country they live in. Since my wedding, I’ve worn the blouse with other outfits and have worn the engagement outfit multiple times. I also always turn to my Khajana branded garment bags for any time I need a garment bag.
Complete list of vendors:
Clothing: @khajanaboutique
Groom’s clothing: @korabynm
Hair: @krish_luxebeautybar
Makeup: @glowbyaffan
Mehendi: @hennabyjayna
Décor: @prashe
Décor Rentals: @ultrapomeventrentals
Caterer: @chef.anand
DJ: @desijunctiondjs @djchani
Venue: @mariottkcdt
Photo/video: @tomasramosphotographers
Planner: @preminievents
Invitations: Mars Art Mumbai
Day of Stationary: @niruandbaku
Day of Stationary Production: Specialty Bindery & Printing, HTX
Wedding website: @appycouple
