{About Sucheta and Rohan}

Sucheta and Rohan are an adorable couple! Their smiles light up a room and they were all smiles on their wedding day at the Sheraton Park at the Anaheim Resort! Sucheta started a part-time MBA program while Rohan was in residency, all throughout wedding planning. Like so many couples, wedding planning was like having another job and their hard work paid off as they had a beautiful wedding!

ShaadiShop has all details for you as shared by Sucheta and Rohan. Enjoy!

{Selecting the Venue}

Before we dive in to their summary of their wedding, we’re particularly excited to share their story as we helped them with their venue selection. Sucheta and Rohan came to ShaadiShop with a vision and we walked them through the venue selection process – everything from venue fees, policies, to suggesting venues, and working with them until the venue they loved was booked! Here’s what they had to say:

Sucheta and Rohan: “There’s nothing like the ShaadiShop website! It’s a fantastic tool that tells you EVERYTHING you need to know i.e. whether the the venue allows fire indoor/outdoors, the back up plan in case it rains, outside catering policies, baraat info, whether the venue has a gazebo that for the mandap and SO much more.

We were so busy with school and work during planning and it was very helpful to have the ShaadiShop website to refer to, whenever we needed. And their blog is loaded with useful info that we actually used! Samta educated us on everything we needed to know about policies and how fees work so we got so much more out of our venue visits because we already understood the basics.” We weren’t trying to understand policies + check out the venues. We could just focus our concentration on determining which venues would be right for us.

The Sheraton Park Anaheim is very close to Disneyland, Downtown Disney, shops, and restaurants. Photo: Aaron Eye Photography

Love this shot of the two lovebirds on the phone screen, with the Sheraton logo in the background.

{The Venue: Sheraton Park at the Anaheim Resort}

Sucheta and Rohan: We considered venues across Orange County and fell in love with the Sheraton Park at the Anaheim Resort.

Location, location, location: the fun Disneyland neighborhood & convenient for our guests.
Knowledgeable: about South Asian weddings: the sales team showed us all of the spaces and they really knew what they were talking about when it came to South Asian weddings -the traditions, the flow of the day and things we’d need.
Trellis-mandap: They also pointed out their new trellis which was perfect for decorating as a mandap. That was one less thing to worry about, vs. building a mandap on-site. Needless to say, the Sheraton Park earned our confidence and trust.
Multiple spaces for events: Every event took place in a unique space. We had our ceremony outdoors in the Lawn, cocktail hour was also outdoors – on the Tiffany Terrace, which we loved! Not all venues have an outdoor space for cocktail hour and we loved to be able to have that at our wedding. And the reception was in the Grand Ballroom. You could tell their staff cared about ensuring we and all of our guests had a fantastic experience.

Sucheta: There were days when I sent our catering manager Lorraine, 2-page long emails, with SO many thoughts and questions and she patiently responded and addressed everything. She was so attentive, responsive and organized in the info she provided. She never made me feel like I was bugging her. She was always super gracious.

Tiffany Terrace for cocktail hour – not a lot of venues have outdoor cocktail space.

Palm trees surround the hotel, creating great backdrops for photoshoots.

We had discussed serving lunch with them, and again, as we were approaching the wedding, it felt silly to ask repeat questions but were so glad we did as there were last minute changes that had to be made. The entire Sheraton Park team was really accommodating and always found a way to make it work.

{Saved from the Rain!}

Sucheta and Rohan: Remember how it was raining in SoCal all of Thanksgiving weekend this year? Well we lucked out! We caught the ONE day of sunshine that weekend! It was a beautiful, bright, sunny Southern California day! We couldn’t have asked for a better day!

{Fashion + Jewelry}

Rohan’s mehndi & ceremony outfits + groomsmen’s kurtas – Manyavar, in Lower Parel, Mumbai
Rohan’s reception suit – Men’s Warehouse.

My mehndi outfit – Season’s in Santacruz, Mumbai.
My ceremony sari – Tashkent in Vile Parle East, Mumbai
My reception lehenga – Panihari, Santacruz, Mumbai

The bridesmaids saris were custom-made. It’s hard to find the same sari in larger quantities. I bought the fabric and got referred to a place to get the borders and blouse fabric. We worked with a tailor to add the borders to the saris. The bridesmaids stitched the blouses themselves and let them decide on a blouse style, as they wished.

{Konkani Bride’s Khola}

Sucheta: For the ceremony I wore a heavy South Indian silk sari. Konkani brides also wear a white cloth over the blouse, called a khola. It’s worn like a sash and is a separate piece from the sari – not attached to the sari. My mom and aunt got mine made for me. In Konkani weddings, the bride enters the mandap wearing the khola and and once the couple is officially married, it is removed. It’s a symbol of a bride transitioning from her parents’ home to her new home with her husband.

Growing up the Konkani community in the US is relatively small compared to other groups. I never thought I’d marry someone who shares my heritage and it was really nice for us and for our parents to have a traditional Konkani wedding.

{Baraat}

{The Ceremony}

{The Reception}

{Moments}

We asked Sucheta and Rohan to share about a couple poignant moments during the weekend.

Question: Rohan, describe your emotions/thoughts when you saw Sucheta at the 1st look.
Rohan: Reality set in during the 1st look. Seeing her was relaxing and a sense of calm came over me. We’d been planning for months for this day and it had finally arrived. I was so happy!

Question: How did you feel when you walked down the aisle?
Sucheta: As I was walking down the aisle, I was so excited! I couldn’t see Rohan because the antarpat was blocking him from view which made me giddy. Our wedding day had finally arrived! I loved seeing all of my family and friends. Seeing them made me really excited!

{Mehndi+Hair+Makeup}

Sucheta: I got my hair, makeup, and draping done by Lishma Patel from Beauty by Lishma. It was convenient having 1 person take care of everything related to my ‘look’.

My mehndi was done by Prashantha with Divya Henna in Northridge. Prashanta was very accommodating. I got my mehndi done the day of my mehndi function. We started early and she was able to get through most of my hands but she finished it at the function itself. At that point, we hadn’t even started on my feet and she was nice enough to stay after the function to finish.

We also booked her to do mehndi for our guests during the mehndi party. We decided that each person could get one hand done and if there was time, come back to do the 2nd hand. Every single person who wanted it on both hands was able to get it and she surprised us by bringing different glitter colors that she sprinkled on the mehndi which everyone loved!

{Decor}

Sucheta and Rohan: The ceremony colors were a milieu of vibrant colors – orange, pink, blue, and we wore red. The reception colors were royal blue and gold. The designs for the mandap, sweetheart stage, and the whole reception were done by Sheer Romance.

We cannot say enough about Yogi. He went out of his way to make our day incredibly beautiful and special. He is passionate about his work which really shows in his dedication to making his events look spectacular. That day as he and his team setup the mandap, he approached us to ask if he could add a few more decorative elements as he felt they’d enhance the look even more. He didn’t charge us – he just cared about our wedding and that the mandap look absolutely brilliant. Another thing we appreciated was that a few months before the wedding, concerned about the potential for rain, we asked him about a contingency plan in case we had to move the wedding indoors and his response was, “don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it”.

He was incredibly easy to work with. We can’t thank him enough and highly recommend him.

{DJ}

Sucheta and Rohan: With the atmosphere set – a beautiful venue and beautiful decor, our DJ ensured that our guests had a brilliant time. Raj, from Sound Nation LA is one of the most experienced and longest running DJ’s in SoCal. He really knows how to ‘read’ the crowd and adjust to what’s working for them. A few of our friends asked us if we had given him a playlist of songs and were pleasantly surprised when we said no, as they were impressed with the variety and flow. He was great to work with and a great host.

Early in the planning process, we happened to be near Raj’s office. He invited us to meet him to discuss the details of our wedding with him. We appreciated him meeting with us, without prior notice and how flexible he was. The day-of the wedding, literally an hour before, we changed the entrance songs for the wedding party and he was totally fine with it. You can tell that Raj, himself, has a good time DJ’ing and that energy permeates to everyone.

{Catering}

Sucheta and Rohan: Our mehndi function was at Haveli restaurant in Tustin. Our guests enjoyed the food and we appreciated their prompt and accommodating service. Our officiant flew into town earlier that day. Since we had not met him in-person yet, he joined us at the mehndi which was a good time to discuss some last minute details for the ceremony. This was unplanned so we asked the staff at Haveli to make a few separate vegetarian dishes for him and when they realized that it was for our officiant they didn’t charge us extra.

Dosa Place did a fantastic job in food and service. Their cooks arrived in uniform with caps – very professional. People LOVED the food!

Natraj Cuisine of India – we had a fantastic experience with our tasting. Vijay himself the owner, sat with us the entire time. It felt like we were at his home as we gave us his undivided attention. He let us make changes to the menu up to 2 weeks before the wedding. On the day-of, everyone was raving about the food. And we enjoyed the leftover jalebis they packed for us, for several days after the wedding.

Our cake was from Amazing Cakes in Anaheim. When our original appointment was cancelled we never got around to rescheduling. But we happened to be in the area one day and took a chance on dropping in. Even though we literally just showed up they were attentive and happy to walk us through the tasting and options. Most bakeries present the samples and then leave you alone in the room for a while to taste. The flavors and samples quickly become a hodge-podge of info that’s hard to remember. We valued that they stayed with us, reminded us what each sample was and really walked us through the options.

{Custom Cake}
We actually wanted something completely custom – not something that they had in any of their sample books. Without hesitation they were happy to replicate our idea, and it came out exactly as we wanted.

{Bobbleheads}

A few months before the wedding, we ordered bobblehead cake toppers. At that point we’d already ordered the cake so before ordering the toppers we reached out to Amazing Cakes to ensure that the toppers would be ok to add. They had no issue with it and simply said that they’d add a platform layer so that the toppers wouldn’t crush the top of the cake.

{Officiant}

The Konkani ceremony is longer than a North Indian ceremony and has a lot of traditions. We met with some priests but they didn’t specialize in Konkanki weddings and we wanted to have as traditional a ceremony as possible. We found our officiant, Raghuchandra Bhat, online, as he’s based in Wisconsin. Prior to the wedding we did meetings with him via FaceTime. We got to learn in pretty significant detail about a Konkani wedding. He conducted all of the pre-wedding rituals with each of our families. And we loved that he was very jovial, relaxed and made each ritual fun, and made our guests laugh. He explained everything in English and was very practical about adjusting the traditional Konkani ceremony to fit life in the US.