The vision behind this New York day was perfectly simple: a minimalist approach to the traditional Hindu affair with whites, golds and greenery galore. A sort of urban garden party, if you will. And with The Foundry serving as the perfect backdrop, Naturally Delicious coordinating behind-the-scenes and Christina Szczupak capturing the day, it’s no wonder this gallery is chock full of cultural gorgeousness.
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From the Bride…Munish asked me to marry him on a beautiful spring day in the most charming brick-walled garden in the West Village. Eleven months later, after five years together, we were married in an intimate ceremony surrounded by our closest friends and family at The Foundry in Long Island City, New York. I fell in love with the space at The Foundry even before seeing it in person. The atmosphere so perfectly fit with our vision for the day, and it also reminded us of the garden where we were engaged. I envisioned our wedding as an urban garden party with touches of the exotic, and we worked to create the perfect environment to merge Munish’s Indian heritage with both my upbringing in the Virginia countryside and our life together in New York City. Munish and I walked down the aisle together and met our four parents at the altar, or mandap, where we all exchanged hugs before beginning the Hindu ceremony. While Indian weddings are often extremely colorful with ornate decorations, we decided to take a more minimal approach, using a muted color palette of whites and golds with an abundance of greenery.
We wanted the mandap to look very organic, and our florist Ariel Dearie perfectly executed our vision with the structure she created from wood and delicate branches. We decorated The Foundry’s entrance with lanterns and vintage brass trays that I purchased from Etsy and eBay, and placed napkins screen printed with gold South Asian-inspired motifs at each table setting. We gifted Indian hand-carved woodblock stamps to our guests at the end of the evening, as well as CDs we made with songs important to our love story. Munish and I used deckle edge Italian stationary to create our programs, and we added our names with a beautiful stamp designed for us by Meagan Tidwell. Her calligraphy that graced our invitations, place cards, table numbers, and menu items added the loveliest touch to our wedding. She also created beautiful signs for our bars explaining our specialty cocktails: mine, a Pani-Puri Margarita, and Munish’s, a Perfect Manhattan. Shannon at Naturally Delicious worked with us to create a menu that reflected a wonderful fusion of Indian food and fresh, springtime Western dishes.
After dinner, our friends performed a Bollywood-style dance that they choreographed for us, which kicked off a dance party that lasted well into the night. Our fantastic photographer Christina Szczupak, who I am lucky enough to count as a great friend, captured our day with such a keen and beautiful eye, and Tree of Life, our videographers, created a film that perfectly reflects the spirit of our day.
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