Sikh Ceremony: Buena Park Gurdwara, Buena Park, CA
Reception: Sheraton Cerritos, Cerritos, CA
Bride and Groom: Gujarati Hindu-Punjabi Sikh
Photography: Lin and Jirsa
What advice would you give to couples that are planning their wedding?
My advice is to relax and have fun. There will always be different opinions so just know what you want and pick and choose your battles. Otherwise, at the end of the day if you’re married to the person you love, nothing else will seem that important in comparison.
You’re Gujarati and your husband’s family is Punjabi. What was the education process regarding your respective traditions?
I married into a Sikh family. We were very lucky, as our parents were really relaxed about the whole weekend and just wanted us to be happy and have a great time, so talking through our respective traditions was really simple. That was so helpful in making the whole process go smoothly.
You had your sangeet, ceremony, and reception in different locations, how easy was that logistically?
We did the mehndi/sangeet at my parent’s house, the ceremony at the Buena Park Gurdwara and the reception at the Sheraton Cerritos. It was easy for us and our guests to transition from the Buena Park Gurdwara to the Sheraton Cerritos for the reception. It helped that the venues were near each other and most of our guests were from Southern California so everyone had cars; so it was seamless for them too.
What touches did you add to personalize your wedding?
My husband is an avid photographer so we designed our escort cards as little cameras. It took a fair bit of time to create them but it was worth it!
At first we were going to go with a traditional cake but while we were doing tastings we talked about how much we love donuts. So at our reception, we had a donut stand, like a cupcake stand. It was really fun and yummy!
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