It’s our first real wedding for 2022, folks, and it’s a goodie – and would you believe the whole thing was planned in just 10 days?! It wasn’t how Shraddha and Samir had initially expected their wedding planning to go, but as you can see from these beautiful pics (by talented lens lady Ana Galloway), it didn’t diminish the beauty of the day one little bit.
“We had had initially booked Mantells Tamaki Drive,” explains the bride, but that plan “went down the drain when we ended up cancelling about five months before the wedding.” You can probably guess why (ahem, COVID…) “We didn’t want to have a big hoorah when we knew we would be missing so many family and friends from overseas so we decided to sign our papers with just ourselves and our witnesses. But my parents said that we would regret not doing anything, which led to us to having to a small intimate ceremony at their home.”
And we’re so very glad they did because the very quickly thrown together event turned out to be a real stunner. Not to mention there were some upsides to having a last-minute celebration, shares Shraddha. “I had always wanted to have beautiful invites but having planned the wedding 10 days prior, there wasn’t much point so we sent out emails. Now I look back and love it as we have gotten to re-read so many nice email replies from pre- and post-wedding, which you can’t do with a physical invite.”
Ready to scroll through the snaps and get all the insider details? Let’s go…
THE VIBE “From our initial big dreams of a Bali wedding to Mantells to my parents’ home, we always knew we wanted our wedding to be chill and fun. Stuffy and formal were the last things we wanted. So we revolved our food and drinks and music around making sure that everyone just had a good, easy, fun time.”
THE DRESS “Being Indian, I wanted something that related to my heritage. A few years ago I was in India and walked into the Falguni Shane Peacock boutique and the first words out of my mouth were, “Wow, I’m definitely getting my wedding outfit from this designer!” After getting engaged I realised I wouldn’t be able to go to India to do my wedding shopping as I traditionally would have so I took a look online at the Falguni Shane Peacock website to see if anything caught my interest and straightaway I knew what I wanted. They were amazing to work with even so far away and the outfit fit like a glove. I couldn’t have been happier with my choice.”
FAVOURITE DETAILS “Our wedding cake. It was a simple rustic three-layer cake with two different flavours (two tiers of carrot cake with cream cheese icing and 1 tier of lemon cake with lemon cream cheese icing and lemon curd swirl) –and it was a total hit! Also, our flowers, by The Flower Vault. I think the flowers were the only thing that remained from the main wedding we were planning. I fell in love with a photo I saw of flowers going up and down a backdrop and knew that’s what I wanted even if we were doing it at home! They were white with lots of greenery and I still couldn’t believe our florist managed to put that together so beautifully with so little time to organise.”
MEMORABLE MOMENT “We decided not to do the traditional thing of staying separately the night before so waking up in the morning and just lying in bed talking about how excited we were about the day, before heading off to start our days separately, was quite cute and special to us. We exchanged cards and I had gotten us ‘matchy’ perfumes that we had found, loved and decided that we were going to wear on the day. It just felt like the perfect calm start to a very exciting day. My other favourite moment of the day was in between the ceremony and the cocktail portion of the evening, Samir and I sat on the couch in our PJs and he massaged my feet while we drank champagne with my parents and sister. It was such a nice moment in the middle of this momentous day where we got to kind of revel in the fact that we had just gotten married.“
TALK BOUT TRADITION “It’s generally Indian tradition to get blessings from your elders at a wedding. We do this by touching their feet and asking for their blessing. Straight after the ceremony we went up to Mum, Dad and all our aunts and uncles to do this. Also, although not tradition, after the ceremony we took a little time to FaceTime Samir’s parents [who live in America] and get their blessings. It was definitely a little emotional as we were all upset that they weren’t able to be there but they were still so happy for us.”
LITTLE LOL “While we were drinking champagne pre-getting ready, the girls and I were trying to get the cake sorted as it had just been delivered. As I was getting it out of the box I completely ruined one side of the icing. I tried to fix it with a spatula but to no avail. Luckily the florist, The Flower Vault, had left a bunch of flowers with us to decorate the cake and we just shoved a whole bunch of them into the cake to make it look pretty. We couldn’t stop laughing because it honestly looked a mess. I don’t think anyone ended up noticing anything wrong with the cake, but it was definitely the laughter I needed to calm my nerves before everything started!”
CONTRIBUTING VENDORS Photographer Ana Galloway Cinematographer Pictvre Florist The Flower Vault Ceremony & Reception Bride’s parents house Afterparty Thursday Catering Catroux, &Sushi Cake Bluebells Cakery Hire Items Insphire (Chiavari chairs, bird cage bar leaners, glassware), Millie Creative (welcome sign, background arches and balloon garland) Celebrant Friend THE BRIDE Bridal ensemble Falguni Shane Peacock Robes Peter Alexander Shoes David Jones Accessories Custom made bangles & earrings Hair Jaime Randell Hair Stylist and Makeup Artist Makeup Rae Sacha Bridesmaid dresses Camilla and Marc Bridesmaid shoes Calvin Klein Bridesmaid gifts Alexander Wang THE GROOM Suit Working Style Shirt Tommy Hilfiger via David Jones Cufflinks Hugo Boss Shoes Smith+Caugheys Watch Bvlgari Barber Barkers Groom Room