Today’s wedding, readers, is completely and utterly beautiful. With a cool and refreshing color palette, minimal decor, and so much love from friends and family, Meera and AJ’s Indian-Jamaican-Scottish mashup wedding is absolutely perfect.
We talked with the bride Meera about her big day:
Tell us about the wedding.
Planning our wedding was such a fun challenge. I’m Indian and AJ is Jamaican/Scottish. Neither of us are traditional so we very much enjoyed going against the grain of a typical Indian wedding. It was important to us that both our cultures be represented in the wedding and that we had plenty of time to enjoy/have fun with our guests. We opted for a small, intimate wedding (75 guests) in Dallas (where I’m from) with close friends and family without groomsmen and bridesmaids.
Neither of us are religious but I wanted to include some Hindu traditions for my family so we exchanged garlands (made by my mother with white roses) and I had a mangalsutra as well. Otherwise, the wedding was secular and officiated by my brother.
What was your inspiration?
Our inspiration was a fabulous dinner party feel. Lots of candlelight, beautiful flowers, banquet style table setting, and lots of food and drinks!
Color-wise, I always knew I wanted blush and shades of green (my favorite color). But since it was September, I added coral and red to add a fall feel.
Did you do any DIY (do it yourself) or special projects/things at the wedding?
We created the entire 5 hour long music playlist for the wedding! Both of us are huge hip hop and rap fans with an extensive music collection. I’m also a dancer and felt that the reception music needed to mirror that! It took SO MUCH TIME but we picked all the songs, edited them down for length, and had everything crossfade. During the reception, the venue provided us with an AV tech to make sure the music went smoothly.
In the middle of the dancing portion of the reception, AJ and I broke into a choreographed dance to Bollywood music as well!
Could you tell us about any special wedding clothes or customs you had?
We chose to mix customs and create something of our own. I wanted to wear both Indian and non-Indian attire so I opted for a white sari (and traditional jewelry) for the ceremony and a blush dress from BHLDN for dancing. AJ wore a custom gray suit the whole time with a bowtie I had made for him.
Another fun cultural aspect were our cakes. The cake we cut was a delicious champagne cake with strawberry and almond filling. However, the “naked cake” with flowers was a traditional Jamaican rum cake created by AJ’s aunt in Atlanta. Guests were able to take pieces of this cake home at the end of the night.
Also, as you might notice in some of the dancing pictures, there was a screen behind the dance floor that could play anything we wanted. During the dancing, I had the Bollywood classic Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam on – it was hilarious to see that on screen juxtaposed with all the hip hop and rap we played.
Do you have any advice for future brides/grooms-to-be?
Follow your happiness!
I.E. Don’t feel pressured by parents, friends, weddings you see on Pinterest, etc. Ultimately, our wedding was so us because we did the things that mattered to us and made us happy.
Thank you so much, Meera! Your wedding looks like it was a smash hit.
Vendors:
Photographer: Jonny Ngo
Venue + Rentals: event1013
Coordinator: Cory Ann Shelton
Hair/Makeup: Makeup by Shilpa
Florist: Central Market
Catering: The Saffron House
