Hello, Maharanis! Get ready to dive into Shalini & Tushar's wedding in today's Platinum Guide Blog.

photo #337110

How did you meet your Groom and when did you know he was "the one"?
We met in June of 2017 in our dental residency program in Brooklyn. A few weeks into our residency program, the two of us decided to plan a last-minute happy hour one day with our co-residents. Everyone seemed to "conveniently" be busy that day and it turned into both of us going to happy hour on our own for a night of bar hopping and dinner. That was the start of our friendship which eventually led to something more 1.5 months later after our countless hangouts as friends and both of us realizing we wanted more.
Share the scoop on your Proposal Story!
On a rainy day in January of 2020, Tushar brought me back to Brooklyn and proposed in front of the bar where we had that first happy hour. When we got back to our apartment, both of our families were waiting there to surprise us with champagne. Later that night he had an engagement celebration planned at a cute hotel in Brooklyn with the rest of our family and friends. While I had a little bit of an inkling about the proposal itself, the rest of the day was a complete surprise to me and was the absolutely perfect way to celebrate our engagement.
Tell us how you went about planning your wedding, and your overall experience with the Venues, Hair & Makeup, Outfits, Decor Theme, and all of the other important details.
Our wedding planning started off differently because of Covid. Originally we had wanted to have a bigger wedding with all of our extended family there but due to covid restrictions and everything being unknown, we had to be realistic and plan for a smaller wedding. Knowing all of that, we revised our venue to search to look for smaller venues. This ended up working out because we fell in love with our wedding venue at a winery out east on Long Island. We focused on booking all of big vendors early on and working out smaller details as we got closer to the wedding day. We had an awesome wedding coordinator who helped us throughout the process to coordinate everything. While we had a decorator handle everything for our ceremony and part of the reception, we have a lot of creative family members who added a special touch to our decorations. My cousin hand-carved the NYC skyline onto our gift card box which was done on a wine crate and also hand-carved the Ganesh which hung behind our mandap. My other cousins helped to make the frame for our seating chart and put together our centerpieces.
How did you select your bridal lengha or wedding dress? Did you have a favorite color in mind?
Because of Covid, I ended up doing all of my wedding dress shopping online and via Zoom calls to India. Because I had a pretty specific vision of what I wanted my wedding dress to look like (off-white with some floral print), it was pretty easy to select my outfit after them showing me a few options over Zoom. While it would have been nice to see the outfit in person beforehand, everything worked out great and I loved the way the wedding outfit turned out! I wanted to stay away from the traditional red and do something a little different. After picking my outfit, I knew I wanted to go with pastel colors for our bridal party.
What was the most enjoyable part of the planning process, and why?
The most enjoyable part of the planning process was seeing everything coming together and having our family there to support us and join us for all of the fun. Whether it was touring venues, food tasting, or doing the wine tasting at our venue, we had so much fun doing it all with our parents, aunts/uncles, and cousins there to join us.
What did your guests particularly love about your Wedding?
Our guests loved that the wedding was at winery since most Indian weddings are not able to be done at a venue like this due to capacity limitations. Because of covid, we were limited to the amount of guests we could invite in the first place and is the reason we were able to choose this venue. Our guests also LOVED the food from Moghul and to this day continue to talk about it.
Was there a really special moment in your wedding that constantly replays in your mind?
While the overall day was special to us, the moments that stood out to me the most was being on the dance floor at the end of the night with all of our friends and families and having the best time.
For events other than your ceremony, please tell us as much as you would like about the decor, style, dances, and all the special details.
For decor, I had always pictured having a rustic theme which worked our perfectly at our venue since it was at a winery. Our decorator incorporated curly willow and greens on our mandap and did a pretty good job executing my vision. Our bridal party and family planned an awesome group dance.
Do you have any words of wisdom for Brides-To-Be?
Just try and enjoy the day as much as you can! Don't get stressed out about little things going wrong because overall the day is going to be amazing.

STYLE
GUIDE
style
Traditional
Romantic
Contemporary
season
Spring
color
Floral & Decor: Stylish Events | Planning & Design: Chandai Events | Photography: Regal Palette Studio | Cinematography: Regal Palette Studio | Ceremony Venue: RGNY Winery | Hair & Makeup: Magnifique Brides | Catering: Moghul Caterers | DJ: Simply Entertainment | Cake & Treats: Audrey’s Bakery | Transportation - Guest: Hampton Jitney | Transportation - Bridal Party: SGB Limousine | Event Staff and Rentals: Krisp Events