Pandya Photography bring us a beautiful collection of outdoor pre-wedding portraits of Sweta and Dhruv, a couple who started off as friends. The bride looks radiant in her long and flowing red lengha as she poses with the groom in his sherwani. They truly look like a Bollywood couple! The bridesmaids look cute as can be in their matching white, red and gold saris, while the groomsmen look handsome in their purple and gold ensembles. See even more perfect portraits of the happy couple in the gallery!
From the bride, on how she met her groom:
"As the saying goes, "love is friendship set on fire." We first met at Rutgers University through mutual friends and then coincidentally wound up living in the same apartment building in Jersey City after graduating college. Spending much more time together with dinners after work,outings on weekends and movie nights w/ our respective roommates, our friends started to see a chemistry forming and took bets that we’d wind up dating and getting married, which we both laughed off, as neither had romantic feelings for the other. A year later, Dhruv relocated to San Francisco for work and we continued to stay in touch via email and phone. The conversations grew longer and we each put in effort to stay good friends despite the long distance. After two years filled with some cross-country visits and daily BBM conversations, Dhruv eventually moved back to New Jersey and during a catch-up dinner, we both admitted we were starting to have feelings for each other beyond friendship and then began our happily ever after."
On the proposal:
"A normal dinner date turned into a walk down memory lane as the night started by revisiting Lover’s Lane, a special section within Melting Pot in Hoboken (the spot we had our first date). Dhruv had requested the exact booth we sat in and had decorated it beforehand with rose petals, candles and a bottle of wine. While waiting for the main course to arrive, Dhruv gave me a card filled with fun coupon vouchers for some of my favorite things (weekend getaway, home-cooked meal from him, etc.) and at the end, he said the night would be a fun memory scavenger hunt. At the end of dinner, as I went to order fondue for dessert, he abruptly stopped me saying dessert would actually be off the menu -literally. He had actually arranged to ship my favorite dessert from across the country in San Francisco, but the order was delayed due to a snow storm and he picked up a variety of desserts from our favorite date spots around NJ to surprise me with instead. After leaving dinner, we headed to the Jersey City boardwalk where Dhruv directed me to a bench where the next clue for the scavenger hunt was hidden. While I was searching for the clue, Dhruv got situated with a bouquet of two dozen red roses and as I looked up, I thought red roses were odd as that was the first time he opted for such a traditional bouquet. He mentioned the clue must’ve blown away, but the roses actually held another clue. In the cold, brisk 10 degree weather, Dhruv kept on teasing me to smell the roses and discover the surprise. I kept on looking through the bouquet but couldn’t find any clues. As I kept hunting, Dhruv started discussing some of our key moments in Jersey City and how we used to spend time on the boardwalk talking about all sorts of things and how our friendship grew into what it is today. Soon I gave up (mainly because my fingers were numb J) and Dhruv reached in to pull out a fake rose, which ended up being a box that held the ring. As soon as he opened it and I saw the ring inside, I started tearing and screaming. I then heard some clicks and saw flashes and noticed Dhruv had asked his best friend to come capture the moment for us to remember. As Dhruv kneeled down on his knee, I continued to shriek (thank goodness the boardwalk was empty due to the cold weather!). After a few minutes, Dhruv joked that his knee may give out if I don’t allow him to actually propose. He then shared some nice thoughts that I couldn’t repeat even if I wanted to – I was still overwhelmed and in shock that I don’t even remember the words he said and neither does he! I managed to squeeze out a yes when he asked the question and we then spent the rest of the night going to some memorable spots in the area. We didn’t even share the news with anyone except our parents until the next day as we wanted to enjoy living in our little cloud 9 bubble for one night – one of the best decisions we could’ve made as things never slowed down from that night onwards!"
On the photographer:
"Abhi from Pandya Photography was actually a childhood friend of my now husband’s and when we were hunting for a photographer, we went to check out his work and see if his style would fit in with what we were envisioning for our engagement pre-shoot and wedding day. During the first meeting, we spent hours bouncing around ideas and he completely understood our vision and creative angle we were going for. Abhi and his team helped us coordinate a full photo shoot to re-create some iconic Bollywood posters to use for our grand movie-themed reception as well as worked alongside us leading up to the big day to listen to our ideas for the types of pictures we wanted to capture. During the day of, Abhi and his team moved quickly during a hectic day to ensure they got all the shots and were such professionals in getting all the shots done proficiently given the amount of guests we had."
Ceremony shots are coming up!
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