Indian Street Food + a Bollywood Flash Mob Make All Our Dreams Come True

Christine Diaz
March 14, 2018
Categories: Cultural Beauty, Real Weddings

This is one of those weddings where, after watching the film by Reel Eyes and perusing the images captured by Larissa Cleveland, I wish I could go back in time and attend. We’re talking a colorful and fun celebration with an industrial vibe planned by Shannon Leahy that featured Indian street food (yum!) and a packed dance floor until the wee hours of the morning. But I really shouldn’t be surprised, because this is clearly an awesome couple – the groom did propose with a Bollywood dance flash mob, after all!

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From the bride… We met at Stanford University during our sophomore year. We became close friends through mutual friends and started dating shortly thereafter!

Nima knows that there’s nothing more important to me than my family and friends, and living far away from them in Minnesota is a challenge for us every day. So, one absolutely freezing January morning (and I mean -10ºF), we went out to our favorite brunch place in Minneapolis, and there, doing a Bollywood dance flash mob, were all my family and friends. My family, Nima’s family, my high school friends, my college friends, my Minneapolis friends, my cousins, and more (around 25 people!) were there doing a choreographed dance to the Bollywood hit “Pretty Woman”. People flew out from California, Texas, and more. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect moment, because I got to celebrate with all of my favorite people.

During the ceremony, our female relatives held a cloth over our heads and sewed a thread into the cloth to symbolize sewing love into our relationship while rubbing sugar cones together to symbolize a sweet life. Along with exchanging rings, Nima placed on me my grandmother’s Mangal-Sutra, a traditional Hindu necklace representing marriage sewn with gold thread and gold and black beads. My a cappella group from college sang two songs: Baba Yetu (the Lord’s prayer in Swahili) and Avulekile Amasango (a Zulu song translating to, “The mothers of old used to pray; things are the way they are because of prayer.”).

Overall we wanted a really bright, colorful, high energy event. We wanted a modern, sleek, industrial vibe, utilizing both outdoor and indoor spaces. The NWBLK is a super unique location with its origin as an old sign factory for the city of San Francisco. The dark and industrial interiors really allowed us to turn up the volume on the colors and define our own vibe. The courtyard outside was perfect for our stations style Indian street food dinner, and the large, open space inside was great for the ceremony and dancing.

Our favorite part of our wedding was most definitely the dancing! Our DJ, Chris Fox, really hit it out of the park with 5+ hours of a packed dance floor! Our wedding planners told us that was a first for them. Getting ready with all my ladies was also really fun!