Happy Monday lovelies! Today we’re putting on our red shoes and heading home to Kansas for a Punjabi Sikh wedding.
Suhail and Amanpreet got married at the Midwest Sikh Gurdwara, followed by a wedding reception at the Marriott in Briarcliff. The wedding was full of bright jewel tone colors and the reception was full soft pastels.
Suhail had quite a story to share for the wedding, especially about the wedding dress. Don’t worry, it worked out magically!
Tell us about the wedding!
We had a traditional Punjabi Sikh wedding that was a four day long extravaganza! It started with the maiyan and mehndi night on Wednesday May 28th. On the 29th of May, we had a joint ladies sangeet and jaago where we also had my choodah ceremony. We decided to do a joint ladies sangeet so we would get to meet each others families that traveled from all over the world. It also gave our families time to meet and hangout with each other before the wedding day.
Our wedding was held on May 30th in the morning at the Midwest Sikh Gurdwara in Lenexa, Kansas. Our reception was held in the evening of the 31st at Courtyard Marriott in Briarcliff where we had the Kansas City skyline as our backdrop!
We knew we wanted a simple wedding. The wedding colors, we went with a royal blue, magenta and yellow. The groomsmen had royal blue ties and the bridesmaid rocked royal blue suits with magenta and embellishments and yellow dupattas. For the reception colors we went with sea foam green and coral (the colors of my lengha).
For our first dance we danced to All of Me by John Legend. We wanted the night to be not just about us but all of friends and family that came out. So we had requested that the DJ call up all the couples to the dance floor halfway into our dance. It just made it that much more special! I’d have to say though, our entrance song was probably our favorite song we danced to. We walked in to “”Turn Down for What”” with sunglasses on, which really fit our goofy personalities!
What was the inspiration for your wedding?
We knew we wanted a simple wedding. The wedding colors, we went with a royal blue, magenta and yellow. The groomsmen had royal blue ties and the bridesmaid rocked royal blue suits with magenta and embellishments and yellow dupattas. For the reception colors we went with sea foam green and coral (the colors of my lengha).
What was the hardest part about wedding planning?
“Making the final decisions..and never having enough time!
I was also taking college classes and had my finals a week before the wedding all the while working my part-time job. So it was very hard to focus on school and finishing strong all the while trying to make sure our day was going to be as special as possible. I loved that my family, my in-laws and my husband were so involved with the planning process and supportive of the fact that I still had school to focus on. It made it so much easier to have certain things/events assigned to each person of the family. ”
Did you do any DIY (do it yourself) or special projects/things at the wedding?
One of the DIY projects we had was decorating the Gurdwara the night before the wedding. We had hung flowers from the ceiling with fishing line so it looked like flowers falling from the ceiling! Another DIY project we did was making the card box for the reception. We had bought a mailbox and painted it a sea foam green, and put pearls all around it with little coral flowers. It looked so cute and elegant!
What was your favorite part of the wedding?
Our favorite part was the evening of our wedding day (the 30th). After we had arrived at my in-laws home, we finally got the relax, change and have a very laid back evening with my husband’s family and our friends. My in-laws had hired a Mexican food truck, which was such a great hit with all the guests! Perfect end to the perfect day.
Even though we had two ceremonies, they went by SO fast. We are beyond lucky that we chose Josh & Loraine from Mojica Photography to document these two very special days. They did a fantastic job and we have these memories to last us a lifetime.
What words of advice do you have for future brides/grooms-to-be?
ASK FOR HELP!!
I know many brides feel as if no one else will do everything exactly as you want and it’s just easier to try to control everything. Don’t do that! Not only will you be miserable, but it will feel like everything is going wrong! It’s so important to keep in mind that a wedding, especially an Indian wedding, has so much going on that some things are bound to go wrong! Just enjoy and ask for help.
Could you tell us about any special wedding customs/clothing you had?
Clothing wise, boy do I have a story. I had originally sent a specific dress design to our tailor in India before we even arrived there. I wanted to go with a dress because here in Kansas, brides have traditionally stuck to lenghas and I wanted something different yet traditional. The tailor kept telling us the dress would be done and I would have time to try it on and make any changes if needed to do so.
Tell us about the wedding
Two days before our flight back to the US, the tailor called and said the dress was ready. Once we arrived at the tailors, it was the biggest let down I had experienced yet. The dress was nothing like the photo that had been sent to them. I was leaving in a couple of days and I had no wedding dress. The next day we went to Amritsar and I remember praying like crazy that something would get figured out. We decided to visit a shop in Jalandhar. Before we entered in, I noticed a beautiful dress on a mannequin, and I asked the shop staff to bring it upstairs so I could try it on.
As soon as I put it on, I knew it was the one. Floor length and all sorts of gorgeous. It had an intricate look to it but wasn’t too shiny. The red gave it the traditional look I wanted and the dupatta was simple. Just perfect. My wedding reception lengha was actually a sea foam green and coral Sabyasachi design my mother in law picked out for me, and I must say she has great taste! 🙂
Customs wise, we did all the traditions and customs Punjabi Sikh weddings have, from the choodah ceremony, where my maternal uncle put my choodah on me, we had the shagun ceremonies on the joint ladies sangeet nights. We also had the maiyan and mehndi ceremonies before the wedding.
{Wedding Vendors}
Photographer: Mojica Photography // Reception Venue: Marriott Courtyard Kansas City at Briarcliff
