We’re picking back up with Kriti and Amit’s Winter Wonderland themed reception! Since the event took place on December 26th, the couple was fully committed to a Christmas theme, and their design team from Fine Linen Creations, De Young Flowers, and R&R Event Rentals definitely came through! The space was resplendent in silvery blue drapings, manzanita centerpieces, blush pink florals, and too many candles to count! In addition, the exterior and lobby of the Fairmont San Jose venue was decked out in Christmas decorations, which made for some great backdrops for their reception portraits. The only thing that sparkled more than the decor was Maharani Kriti! She wore a bright blue lehenga from Sagar Exclusive, with glowing hair and makeup from Laenka By Myrium. (Amit looked incredible as well, in a tux by Bossini!) After some showstopping performances, guests were spoiled by the rhythms of Wicked Entertainment and culinary delights from Amber India. One such creation was the vodka pani puri served at the bar. We need to try this immediately! You’ll definitely want to look through the full gallery of this extravaganza captured by the incredible Wedding Documentary Photo + Cinema! And make sure to read our interview with Kriti below which covers so many behind the scenes details!
Tell us about your wedding style. When you sat down to really figure out how your dream wedding would look, did you start with one central color, a palette of colors, or a theme that served as your inspiration?
Oh gosh this is hard. Honestly my wedding theme changed SIGNIFICANTLY. I wanted really flowy drapes and glass and candles everywhere, but my parents wanted a traditional open mandap with tons of floral arrangements (which I did not care for). We managed to come to a middle group when we found a beautiful mandap arrangement courtesy of Fine Linen Creations and Terry was willing to work with us to add all the traditional elements my parents required. We had to include my nontraditional style though by hanging a mistletoe bouquet at the entrance so our bridal party had to blow each other kisses walking in haha!! The aisle arrangements were gorgeous as was the beautiful Ganesh and draping outside the wedding hall. De Young Flowers took care of all the floral and candles for this event. We wanted the colors to really contrast the reception colors so we went with red, magenta, and orange all mixed in with pops of green mistletoe for the x-mas feel.
My reception theme was always a Winter Wonderland one since it was during Christmas time. I really wanted to show off the manzanita centerpieces with beautiful white and blush pink florals and romantic candles. With the whole silver and blue and white theme, it was pretty easy to coordinate my vision! It was so lovely that the Fairmont was already decorated for Christmas and the beautiful lights in Christmas in the park made for a really fun baraat and pre-reception shoot! We even got to sit on some of the rides for our pre-wedding shoot with our bridal party which was a highlight for all of us
What did you enjoy most about the process of planning your dream Indian wedding?
The love from my friends and family! I truly had no idea how deeply some of these people cared about me and my loved ones. It was so moving to see such a large and diverse group come together, take care of us and of each other, and make all of our dreams come true! We had some surprise performances and speeches that brought us to tears and gave us some of our best memories of the wedding!
How did you choose your lengha or lenghas? Did you work with a certain designer? Did you spend hours on the internet first?
I went to almost every single wedding dress vendor in the Bay Area. After looking everywhere, I found 2 of my dream dresses right by me at Sagar Exclusive. Unfortunately they were both in red and I couldn't wear red for both the wedding and reception. Varsha Patel is a phenomenal designer and she worked with me to recreate of the red anarkali lenghas into a blue and silver masterpiece that I wore in my reception! She customized it to make it sleeveless and very comfortable for me since I was really claustrophobic and it was absolutely perfect! I spent almost 2 months looking for a dress and the fact that I found both my dresses her in one day amazed me. We ended up getting all my bridesmaids clothing for her and almost all of my jewelry and other event outfits from her as well. Even the groomsmen and family outfits all came from Sagar Exclusive - they were wonderful to work with and made us feel like family!
Looking back, was there a really special moment that you remember from your wedding that stands out as the most magical?
There were too many to list here but these are definitely our highlights:
-Playing the dhol with my husband and dad up on stage at the end of the night (thanks to Wicked Entertainment for trusting us with their instruments and letting us go wild)!
-Our first dance was MAGICAL! Looking into my husband's eyes and forgetting the rest of the world was a glorious feeling. We relive this moment every day! But I will never let him live down the fact that he almost dropped me in our final dip (supposedly the dance floor was more slippery than the floors we had practiced on haha).
-Cutting the cake I was so hungry instead of feeding it to Amit I started eating it myself until Vijay scolded me gently haha!! Poor husband.
-My brother's speech made everyone in the reception tear up. He captured our entire romance so well and even managed to dig up a transcript of my Tinder messages with Amit and read our awkward initial conversation out loud! Oh my gosh we were so embarrassed, but it was really cute!
-My Rajput Sangeet/Mehndi Ceremony decor done by R&R Event Rentals truly blew us all away! They went above and beyond all of our expectations! We fully intend to work with them for future events.
Did you and your Raja have a special song that you danced to as your first dance? How did you choose it?
Oh gosh we had a mix because we simply couldn't choose. We really wanted to prank our families so we wanted to start out with a slow romantic song and incorporate something in English for our non-Indian friends, but then switch to something naughty that was way more suited to our personalities. We started with Jeena Jeena and moved on to Tu Chahiye. Next was Let's Get Married, then Rukhmani Rukhmani (omg the reactions were awesome) and finally Dil Bole Hadippa. Our entire first dance was choreographed by Joya Kazi - she was fabulous to work with and we had such a blast learning this dance. We still do it today because it's so romantic!
How about hair and makeup? Did you already have a style in mind or did you work with a specialist to find your perfect look?
I picked Myrium Haye Shan to do my makeup - from Laenka by Myrium. Both her and Lin did a great job on both mine and my moms hair and makeup for all three days! I let them wing it since I had faith in their work after our trials and my beautiful engagement shoot. Every look was absolutely flawless and I am very grateful for making me feel so lovely! My husband certainly appreciated it.
Did family or friends help out with certain special details that really added to the event?
They helped out with everything and we could not have achieved this wedding without them! To give you some examples our friend and family: decorated our house, arranged for food for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day of the week for our guests at the home and hotel, coordinated transportation for all of our out of town guests (about 72 total), helped my bridesmaids get ready, helped my mom and I get ready, taught us how to conduct the ceremonies, negotiated with vendors with us, wrapped all of our return gifts, stored everything we did not have space for, and so much more! I really wish someone had told me earlier on in the planning to ask for help and not hesitate to take it!
Anything else you want to tell us? We'd love to hear all about your other details! (jewelry, mehndi, venue, cake, bouquets, etc.)
Jewelry was all from Sagar Exclusive or gifts from my grandparents and mom! Bridal mehndi was by Ravie Kattaura and she made a bharatnatyam dancer to represent me and a the groom in a 49ers jersey with a trophy in hand to represent my husband! That was super cute and personalized. She even drew a turtle on my foot which represented Amit wanting to come in to the Baraat on a turtle so his shining moment could be dragged out for a long time!
Tejel Patel came to the rescue and fixed so many problems! Things would have been really messy if she had not been so involved from the get-go. She's a wonderful planner and made sure everything went smoothly the day of (at least for our eyes)!
Amber India did all of the food for my 25th and 26th events on my wedding day and Saxena Sangeet day! We got so many compliments on it, especially on the vodka pani puri in the cocktail hour and the chaat station. It was a great job done by Karam Gill! My red and orange lengha on my Rajput Sangeet day is from Vama Designs! It's a fabulous piece so I had to give her a shout out as well.
Thanks for the inside scoop Kriti! See all you lovely readers bright and early tomorrow!
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