Nashville, Tennessee Indian Wedding by Full Frame Cinema

How did you meet your Groom and when did you know he was "the one"?

I met Hitesh when his best friend brought him over to our apartment one day. This was during my senior year of college. After chatting and texting for a couple of weeks, he asked me to dinner  one night. That night, we talked for hours and hours and this led to more incredible dates. On March 22, 2009, he finally mustered up the courage to ask me to be his girlfriend. I knew that he was the one for me soon after that when I was applying to different schools all over the US. I was worried about where I would end up especially so early on in our relationship. He told me not to worry because distance wouldn't break us and that I should go where I want to because he would support me the whole way. In that moment, I loved him so much and I knew that we would make it through anything. He was right! We only grew stronger after that.  Since then, the past 8 years have been incredible!

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.

I started planning in a step by step fashion by prioritizing what was the most important to what I could push off until later.  This was really important for me to do since I was planning my wedding in Nashville, while living in St. Louis without many weekends to go back to plan and meet vendors. I had my venue booked about a year and half before the wedding since this was a huge part of starting the planning process.

Venue:  I could not have been more happy with the venue and our coordinators that were provided through them. It was my dad's dream to have my wedding at the Gaylord. When we first looked at the venue I was worried because I wasn't sure if things would fall on time because of how big it was and how Indian standard time is a real thing. My coordinator, Claire Gore, was incredible. She literally helped me plan out the timing exactly and not a single event was late! The large size of the venue actually worked out well because our guests loved spending the time between our events to experience the Opryland! The Opryland was the first part of creating our magical weekend.

Decor ( Weddings Instyle): I knew Ragini Patel with Weddings Instyle was who I wanted to do our decor after our family and friends strongly recommended her. She was great and easy to communicate with and I was able to send her photos of what I wanted. She went above and beyond and turned it all into a reality. Even for the mandap, I really wanted a coral/peachy color and it turned out to be exactly what I wanted and more.

Photography (Banga Studios): This was an easy decision. I knew I wanted Banga Studios from the beginning. Actually, I first heard of them on Maharani Weddings and I absolutely loved their style. So that was the second thing I booked after my venue! Words can't express how happy we were with our engagement and wedding photos. They were so great to work with!

Videography (Full Frame Cinema): When I was looking for videographers, I didn't know where to start. I came across Full Frame while googling wedding videographers in Nashville. When I saw Jeffrey Holland's work I fell in love with it! He created a highlight video, teaser, and all the raw footage for us and we were in tears of joy when we watched it. He's incredibly talented and so easy to work with! 

Do you have any words of wisdom for Brides-To-Be?

Don't stress out the week of your wedding! It's okay to go nuts and plan a wedding to every little detail, but the week before the wedding, let go of it all. At the end of the day, no one will remember the small details that you stress yourself over about, but stressing about the little things before the wedding takes away from the entire experience and enjoying the most memorable and special day of your life. The other piece of advice I have is to remind yourselves that this is your guys' day. You will get pressure from everyone to do certain things, but really it's your decision and it's okay to do what you want because its your wedding. You can't make everyone happy, but you can make yourself happy!

I am so glad someone told me this before my wedding because it's so true. 

Have a fab day, Maharanis!