Happy Friday, lovely Maharanis! If you were seeking bridal inspiration, you've come to the right place! Today, we are sharing Anamika & Austin's lovely wedding celebration. Believe us, you will love every detail! This unique ceremony was celebrated at the premier venue, The Bordone LIC, which gave the presents an incredible view of the magnific New York City as the scenario of this emotional joining! Exclusive Events NY (Florista Decor) was the mastermind behind the surreal floral mandap. They did an incredible job putting all those roses in vibrant colors together to create a romantic decoration. Anamika, our gorgeous Maharani, captivated everyone as she walked down the aisle, looking like a princess from a fairytale! The now spouses wanted to link their cultures in this celebration, and they did so by having a traditional western celebration too! Anamika & Austin attended this long-awaited event looking elegantly and fashionable in their traditional attires. And thanks to a great job by Jashim Jalal Studios, we can get visual pleasure! There was so much more to admire throughout the festivity. So, if you want to get inspired, do not wait any longer and dive into today's gallery that we have prepared for you. It reunites a fabulous palette of colors you would not like to miss! Enjoy it!
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How did you meet your Groom and when did you know he was "the one"?
Our relationship started in the unlikeliest of places while studying anatomy in a dingy basement lab during our first year of medical school together. Among 260 students in our class, fate placed us in the same five-person lab group, and our shared penchants for late-night studying found us pairing off to study together often. In between our attempts to memorize nerve and vessel branches, we realized that we shared a love of music festivals, college basketball, and all things fast food.
One thing that we didn’t agree on when we first met was traveling. At that point, I had been to 20+ countries and Austin had been to 1. He didn’t know what was so special about it. For our first trip, we went to Bali after spontaneously finding affordable tickets. He endured two 12-hour flights (each way) and a case of Bali-belly, but still insisted on seeing and eating all of the things on my itinerary- that’s when I knew he was the one. Now, it has become one of his favorite pastimes to peer over our scratch-off travel map and plans our next trip together – we’ve already been to 14 countries together and counting!
Share the scoop on your Proposal Story!
As we were dating, we discovered a theme - a certain number, “11” kept popping up around us: our lab group number, our first date, the date of our first kiss, etc. I hadn’t even put it together during a weekend in November when I was down in DC for a conference and Austin happened to schedule a residency interview in Baltimore the same day. He offered to drive me all the way back up to school in Boston, with a plan to spend a nice night together in NYC to split up the trip. He had me pick out a fancy restaurant, and subtly suggested I could wear a certain dress (which I decided against, since it was the dress I had planned to get proposed to in…). The restaurant happened to be right near my favorite park to visit while growing up in Queens – I thought this was a complete coincidence, but somehow, I had played right into his plan! He knew I had called it my favorite place in the world, so after our meal, he “spontaneously” decided we should go on a walk to said park. It was late, and cold…so cold that two desperately bundled guys were the only people in the park, standing on this long platform which led out towards the water and overlooked the brilliant NYC skyline. Austin “spotted” a banner hung randomly on the railing at the end of the platform (I thought it was street art), unveiling beautiful LED lighting that read “Happy 11-11.” Before I could even realize that it had just turned midnight on November 11th, he was down on one knee, those bundled guys were snapping pictures of us, and I was in shock! To cap it off, as soon as I said yes, over a dozen of my family and closest friends (some of whom had flown cross-country to be there) came running up to the platform, champagne in hand, ready to party the rest of the night away together. The fact that he somehow managed to keep it a complete surprise was the icing on the cake! He nailed my dream proposal.
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.
It was not easy to plan a multi-day wedding and I couldn’t find many fusion Bengali-Hindu weddings online. Austin and I brainstormed all of the things we cared about and asked our parents which aspects were non-negotiable. My mom wanted the full traditional Bengali Hindu ceremony, and Austin wanted to see me walk down the aisle in a white dress. We knew it would have to be a multi-day wedding to accommodate all our wishes. We found the perfect venue - the Bordone - a blank canvas that overlooked the NYC skyline which allowed for complete customizability but needed a lot of coordination. We went looking for a wedding planner that could help bring our vision to life. We found Aysha from Yesmin Events and instantly clicked with her. She was so thoughtful and detail-oriented and was truly the reason for our wedding being as successful as it was.
Of note, our wedding got moved from April 2020 to the same date in April 2021 and most of our vendors were easy to work with to move the date. Aysha was a rockstar who moved our multi-day wedding without any fuss. One of our venues did unexpectedly cancel on us a month prior to our wedding in 2021, but the Bordone gave us a great deal to move the Hindu wedding to their venue, making it even easier for our guests. We were able to transform the venue two times to give different vibes. Our theme for the Hindu ceremony was fun, colorful, and vibrant with an open floor model of people getting to eat food street stall style, get henna done while also watching our wedding informally and a dance floor to cap off the night. The following day we went for a daytime western ceremony created by us, with a green/dusty rose theme with a cocktail hour and sangeet style reception.
We loved all of our vendors! DJUSA was so kind to host a zoom reception party for us on our original date in 2020 for our family and friends to celebrate with us in a socially distant manner. It was so exciting for our guests to meet Arjun in person at the actual wedding. Tamanna did each of my hair/makeup looks even better than I had imagined for myself, Sameera executed the vision I had for my bridal henna and Shamina adorned all of our guests with henna on the wedding day! Exclusive Events turned the Bordone into 2 different places, and people are still talking about our beautiful mandap which took a bit of problem-solving to account for some extreme winds! The bartenders from Top Notch events were able to execute our specialty cocktails the way we created them. Our vendors went above and beyond to make sure our wedding was perfect- we were the first “post” pandemic wedding for most of them.
How did you select your bridal lengha or wedding dress? Did you have a favorite color in mind?
I always knew I wanted the traditional Bengali Hindu bridal look- red banarasi saree wearing a mukut and my forehead painted in a simple ornate design. I bought my bridal saree with my mother in Kolkata and went with a gold dupatta and gold jewelry. I never imagined having a western ceremony with a white gown and went shopping with my mother in law for it. For my reception lehenga, I got it custom-made from Sajda by Suman, which took a 6-month period to design and trial. Austin was set on green for his outfits (he is a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan), so I had a white lehenga made with rose gold (same color as my wedding rings) and green touches.
What was the most enjoyable part of the planning process, and why?
Making it completely our own! Coming from two completely different backgrounds, we brainstormed a lot about how to honor each of our families and traditions into a shared vision. What we came up with involved lots of Bangladeshi Hindu customs, as well as a full ceremony and reception in the Italian-Catholic tradition, but with our own twists, including having Austin’s best friend as the officiant for the “Western” ceremony, custom drinks we created at home for cocktail hour (which we aptly named “the mood stabilizer” and “the pacifier” after our respective professions as a psychiatrist and pediatrician), a lineup of Sangeet-style performances to lead off the reception, and both a bride’s and a groom’s baraat, where I entered on a lotus palanquin accompanied by my “bridesmen” and Austin came in style on horseback blasting Meek Mill’s Dreams and Nightmares (the Eagles’ Super Bowl anthem).
What did your guests particularly love about your Wedding?
It’s been over a year, and they are still talking about the food, music, and skyline views. A lot of our guests came from out of town so enjoying the beauty of the NYC skyline was a real treat for them. Moghul caterers helped us create a mix of traditional South Asian foods, Italian foods, and fusion items in a street fair-styled format for guests to enjoy throughout the evening of the Hindu ceremony and Kebab King delivered Indo-Chinese food at our reception. Ricky from Exclusive Events and Arjun from DJUSA had our guests dancing the entire time on both nights!
Was there a really special moment in your wedding that constantly replays in your mind?
I am a HUGE Bollywood fan, and, like traveling, have been trying to get Austin hooked since we were first together. Imagine the look on my face, then, when after our Hindu ceremony was over, our emcee had me sit down for a “special performance,” and who comes strolling in but my brand-new husband, microphone in hand, yellow flower petals at his feet, dressed in the full head-to-toe costume of SRK in DDLJ, singing flawlessly in Hindi the full lyrics of “Tujhe Dekha To.” I was STUNNED! I of course took my cue and ran to him, just like the movie scene that I had swooned over 100 times.
Honorable mention – Austin, who grew up nearrrrrr West Philadelphia (born and raised!), wrote, recorded, and live-performed his very own version of the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” theme, titled “The Fresh Prince of BD” with lots of witty references to when we first met (and his “life got flipped, turned upside down”), meeting my entire family in Bangladesh (“you’re coming to meet my aunties and uncles in BD”) and absolutely loving his new adopted culture (“I said “What’s BD? That’s Bangladesh! Tried a new sherwani on like ‘Dang, I look fresh!’”).
For a guy who claims to have never had designs for a big fancy wedding, he sure took the groom's game to a whole new level with those performances, which he said “inspired him” to step way out of his comfort zone to perform!
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.
We had 4 days of events. My mehndi was an intimate at-home party to start off the wedding festivities- my cousins and a childhood friend who is a pastry chef (@sofia.elmejjati) created an elaborate dessert table and we decorated both inside and outside the house. Given covid capacity restrictions, we moved our Gaye Holud (Haldi) to the LIC Sheraton Ballroom which gave our guests a first glimpse of a skyline backdrop, and we homemade a custom flower arch for it (which was also used as décor for other wedding events). I bought matching saris and floral jewelry for all of my girlfriends and my mom did the same for all of her friends! We also used Kiehl's turmeric mask instead of real turmeric for the ceremony.
Other special details include having my own baraat, a hype entrance song (Tune Mare Entriyaan-Bengali intro) while being carried out on a lotus by my bridesmen then being handed over to my brothers/male cousins to carry me around Austin for the ceremony.
For our western ceremony, I had my cousin sing- Arziyaan by Devangi Chopra while I walked down the aisle with both of my parents and we did personalized vows.
For our reception, we had dances from both sides of our family and Austin’s family danced to ABBA - Dancing Queen for their family dance.
Do you have any words of wisdom for Brides-To-Be?
We know there is a ton of pressure from families to make our wedding a certain way but ultimately it’s what you and your partner want the wedding to look like. For anything more than 1 event, hire a planner! It is super important that your planner matches your vision for your wedding- Aysha was key to making our wedding a success. At first, my parents didn't think we needed a planner, but by the end of the wedding, they refused to ever have a party without her present! Also on the day of the wedding or week, just relax and have fun!
Anything else you want to tell us? We'd love to hear all about your other details! (jewelry, mehndi, venue, cake, bouquets, etc.)
We went wedding shopping in India and Bangladesh and were able to get outfits for the bride's side family and friends, and all of the groom's side-which included 30 matching kurtas for Austin’s baraat. We had to go to multiple shops to gather matching sarees for 15 of my girlfriends and my mom’s 30 friends for the Gaye Holud.
For my Gaye Holud-My flower jewelry was made by a family friend designer in Bangladesh and the saree was from ArtofLiza. We even got matching flower jewelry for our friends and aunties. We had our invitations custom-made in Kolkata. I got my mukut and Austin’s topor handmade in Old Dhaka and it was made with real sholapith.
Since it was an early 2021 wedding, we wanted to make sure everyone felt COVID-safe. We had customized masks, hand sanitizers and noted everyone’s vaccination status, and made sure everyone who hasn’t had testing done- thankfully no one got COVID from the wedding!
I hope you've enjoyed this incredible journey! Don't forget to come back for more love stories!
