Ready for another beautiful and awe-inspiring wedding today?! Well, you’re just going to fall in love with this Indian wedding from Florida.
Ashmi and Tushar had a December wedding at the Rosen Center in Orlando, Florida. They had a garba the day before, and on the wedding day, a real elephant.
Their wedding decor was just, astounding. Designed by the fabulous Suhaag Garden, they created a luxurious vintage chic theme around elephants. We can’t get over these woodsy centerpieces with hanging orchids, gems, and tealight candles!
And Ashmi’s wedding outfits are stunning. Just loving her red lengha and blue reception sari. She tells us that she didn’t pick anything out! Her dad bought the wedding ceremony outfit while he was on a business trip to Bangalore. And both mom and dad bought the remaining wedding outfits while they were in Mumbai (from the same store her mother bought her wedding clothes years ago too). Ashmi did get to buy Tushar’s wedding outfit when she visited India just prior to their wedding. He definitely looks dashing in them.
I suggest you all grab your box of tissues and a cup of chai. While bittersweet in many ways, Ashmi and Tushar put together a wedding with love and style.
Thanks to Sona Photography for capturing this Indian wedding!
Tell us about the wedding!
We’re both Indian Hindus so we had a pretty typical Hindu wedding ceremony at the Rosen Centre in Orlando, FL. The night before our wedding, we had a garba/raas party as we’re Gujarati. The band playing, Surbahar, is a band from my hometown in Melbourne and are actually great friends of ours. So having them play at our wedding was really special for me.
I actually surprised Tushar by doing a dance performance for him with two of my girl friends. He was so surprised! They started the dance while we were sitting and watching the performance. He had just leaned over to me to tell me that he loved the fact that they were doing this performance when I smiled at him and got up and started dancing with him. The look on his face was priceless!
One of Tushar’s dreams had always been that he wanted to come in on an elephant and so that’s exactly what he did. It turned out to be phenomenal and such a great time. The DJ played amazing music and everyone was dancing like maniacs.
While I was picking out mandap’s with my decorators (the amazing folks at Suhaag Garden), I immediately fell in love with the mandap that we used. It was so different from the traditional box styles. There were these intricately carved swan designs in the pillars and the whole thing was set to kind of feel like a coliseum.
I have no idea what to tell you about the reception except for that it was beautiful and wonderful! One of Tushar’s best friends was our DJ and he rocked it. Our friends, brothers, and my father all spoke at the wedding…I’m pretty sure that my father stole the show. His speech was amazing. Our friends did a dance performance right before we broke for dinner and they surprised us by turning it into a flash mob! Probably half of our guests ended up on the dance floor….including his dad and some of our other elder family members. It was surreal! I kept thinking how unbelievable it was that they were able to keep this a secret when I thought I knew every last thing there was to know about the wedding plans. From there, we just danced the night away and it was awesome.
Oh and there was a lot of bling! I haven’t gotten over my teenage obsession with all things sparkly (I’m sure if you take one look at my dress, you’ll understand).
What was the inspiration for your wedding?
Decor-wise we based a lot of our wedding around the elephant. The garba floor centerpiece featured these big tusks surrounded by elephant statues, candles, and flowers. Tushar came into our wedding ceremony on an elephant. There was a beautiful Lord Ganesh statue at the entrance to our ceremony. Our reception centerpieces had these beautiful gold tusks with orchids hanging on them. We had a photobooth with a personalized logo on the bottom…this featured our names, the date, and an elephant symbol. Our reception favors were personalized wine glasses. These also had the same elephant symbol on them.
As for the general feel of the wedding, we just really wanted everyone to feel the love. I think that this is pretty cliche but true at the same time. Tushar and I were actually married last April in a small, intimate, private ceremony at the hospital where his mom was receiving care. It was beautiful and special and so amazing. The only thing that was missing was that we didn’t get to share that day with all of our friends and extended family. We really wanted to be able to do that so we had this wedding in December.
The year leading up to our December wedding was probably one of the most challenging years either one of us has ever had to go through. We both honestly have no idea how we would have made it through the year without the huge amount of support we received from everyone. I wanted all of our guests to know how much Tushar and I love each and every one of them and how we wouldn’t be where we were without them. Our guests, the love we feel for them, and acknowledging how thankful we are for having them in our life guided pretty much every decision we made for this wedding.
What was the hardest part about wedding planning?
Ugh…everything!! I am not a planner by any means so it was really hard to even get started. Every time I thought I was good to go, my parents would point out small details that I had completely overlooked. The whole thing probably would have been a disaster if they hadn’t taken over.
Little details like figuring out the exact timing of everything, what to give as favors, how to package the favors, what to put in the snack bags we put in everyone’s hotel rooms, what to serve for breakfast, etc. were probably the hardest to figure out and the hardest to get excited about…they just seemed so tedious.
Did you do any DIY (do it yourself) or special projects/things at the wedding?
Honestly, not really, unless you count boxing and wrapping the wine glasses for the wedding favors and putting together the gift bags. I think those are things that most people have to do anyway.
What was your favorite part of the wedding?
So, Tushar’s mom passed away one week after our wedding in April. At our big wedding in December, during the reception, we played a video full of pictures and clips from our April wedding. We wanted everything to tie together in this celebration and we wanted to share how special that day was too. The video was also kind of a tribute to Tushar’s mom. Not having her be able to be at our big celebration was hard on us.
Getting to see that video on the projectors and see her face and see how happy she was on that day in April made us feel like she was there…it’s what made our celebration feel complete.
What 3 words of advice do you have for future brides/grooms-to-be?
Let it go…
I think that most brides start off wedding planning with this idea of how they want their day to be and end up being so particular about every last thing. I was exactly the same. I had an exact idea about how I wanted things and would end up being stressed if it didn’t seem like something was working out. At some point in the planning process, when I was stressing out about some unimportant detail, my dad sat me down and said,
“Ashmi, in the grand scheme of things, how much do you think this will impact your overall experience and your guests’ overall experience? If you think it’s a big deal, we’ll make a big deal over it, but, in the grand scheme of things, if you don’t think you or your guests will even remember this detail, let it go and worry about something else.”
He was completely right and those words became my guide for everything. How much did it matter? Most of those details didn’t and I let it go.
I also started the planning wanting to be in control of everything. That’s crazy, I didn’t know anything about wedding planning (or large event planning) and here I was acting like I knew everything. Wedding planning became so much more fun (and easy) when I let go of the reins, gave them to my parents (who really did know better), and went with it. They know me; they know my tastes, my likes, my dislikes. Trusting them to turn my day into a dream took a lot of the pressure off of me so I could enjoy the ride.
Anyone asks me about wedding planning and the first thing I say is that the most important thing I did in the whole process was let.it.go.
Anything else you would like to add?
My vendors were amazing…I put so much trust in my vendors and it paid off. They go through weddings on a regular basis; it’s not a one time thing for them. They know what they’re talking about. I took all of their suggestions, let them tell me what to do (and not to do), and went with it. It worked out well. They took everything we planned and executed it perfectly.
{Wedding Suppliers}
Photographer: Sona Photography
Event Designer: Suhaag Garden
Venue: The Rosen Centre
