Gorgeous Golden Gown Indian Wedding

Samta Varia

11 years ago

Sonia and Ravi
Garba, Wedding and Reception: Hilton Irvine
Photography: Randery Imagery

Did your families meld your two cultures together?
Even though Ravi and I are both Hindu, I was surprised at how different and how many different wedding traditions there were, that I didn’t know about. I think our families had differing expectations, so we just talked through everything and worked it out.

There’s going to be compromises each of our families had certain things that were really important to us, so we made sure those preferences were met.

Their ceremony space is indoors – did they allow a flame indoors?
Yeah, we had to get a permit and get it cleared by the hotel. It was pretty easy to do. The Hilton was great. We were really happy with the space and the service. It’s literally across from John Wayne Airport so that made it convenient for our out-of-town guests too.

The mandap looked beautiful and a flame indoors was fine.

They have a nice outdoor space too. We decided not to use it for the ceremony but we made it a beautiful gateway to welcome the baraat.

We had our garba at the Hilton too.

The sangeet/garba was the night before the wedding, also the Hilton Irvine.

Where did you shop?
My in-laws went to India and they bought my clothes. I left it open to them and I saw the clothes when they came back. We didn’t FaceTime, Whats App etc.

You were pretty laid back about planning, was that a conscious decision?
Yeah, kind of. My mom was pretty passionate about planning so I kinda sat back and let her take the lead. She knows I like purple so we made that one of our main colors. And in general, I didn’t have strong opinions or wishes so I was happy to pretty much leave it up to my mom and in-laws.

Every wedding has dances :), tell us about yours.
We had a lot of fun with the dances at our wedding.
We hired a choreographer for one of our dances – we found him online. He’s actually an American guy but even for the Indian portions he gave us some really good moves. The uncles and aunties did funny performances too!

Did you do a makeup trial?
I didn’t. I had used the artist for my engagement party and she did a really good job, so I decided to use her for my wedding day.

In what order did you book vendors?
The venue first, then the caterer, DJ, and everything else.

Do you have any advice you’d give to brides for the wedding day?

It’s going to be overwhelming but try to take in as much as you can
Expect that some things are going to go wrong, but just keep smiling. Some things your guests won’t even notice!
We had our sangeet at the Hilton so we stayed there on Friday. But for anyone, if you’re getting married at hotel I definitely recommend staying there the night before your wedding so you can sleep in and just be ready to start getting ready.