Divya and Manju
Wedding: Garden at Heather Farms, Walnut Creek, CA
Reception: Embassy Suites, Walnut Creek, CA
Manju and I are both Malayalee, we’re just from different religious backgrounds. She’s Christian and I’m Hindu, so we did two ceremonies. We decided to bring in live musicians for each. A Strings Trio for the Christian ceremony and a sitar player for the Hindu ceremony. It was lovely!
Plus Manju’s father and brother are priests so it was very special to have them lead the Christian ceremony.
Share about having a same sex Hindu ceremony.
It went very smoothly and it didn’t feel that different from other Hindu ceremonies I had attended. Panditji Shukavak was great! He had done a same sex ceremony prior to ours, so he knew what aspects to alter for us. He even incorporated my two little ones into the ceremony.
How did you work out the logistics between the two ceremonies?
We didn’t change our clothes in-between, so that definitely saved time. We served snacks and chai in-between the 2 ceremonies as well, which was a great way to give us time to transition – setup the mandap etc.
How desi-friendly was Heather Farms?
Very. The only thing they didn’t allow us to do was throw flower petals.
After the ceremonies everyone headed to the Embassy Suites for the reception. The hotel shuttled people from Heather Farms as well as our family members. Most of the guests – even local guests – stayed at the hotel, which was great!
Where did you buy your clothes?
We went to Vitha Fashions in Cerritos. We got everything from there – for Manju and I as well as the kids and even bought our jewelry and shoes too.
Do you have any wedding planning advice?
Don’t stress the small stuff, just enjoy the day. You’re just going to have good memories and if you nitpick on perfection you’ll end up missing out.
Our Vendors:
Invitations: Wedding Paper Divas
Clothes: Vitha Fashions
Indian Snacks: Spice Hut
Wedding Coordinator: Tammy Scott, Ajooba Events
Our wedding coordinator Tammy Scott from Ajooba Events was fantastic! She was supportive, thought of everything and helpful. For instance she placed a lovely elephant statue and sign at the entrance of Heather Farms so that was one of the first things people saw when hey entered Heather Farms.
She pretty much focuses on South Asian weddings. We went to her showroom in Modesto there and she had so many decorations for an Indian wedding.
She found our DJ whom we really liked as well. They mixed a lot of hip hop and Hindi music.
She even had oil lamps that my family needed to do the blessings before we left to go to Heather Farms.
Divya and Manju. Sure This Wedding was very Beautiful and Special. Both of you looked Very nice, Beautiful and also your Reception was great. We Enjoyied. Every bit of eat. We will not Forget this Day because we had our First AMTRAK Ride. To come for your Wedding. We wants to Welcome Manju to Our a Family.