MEGAN & AARJAVE

GADSDEN HOUSE WEDDING

November 12, 2016

Charleston, South Carolina

Tell us how you met: We both work at the same financial services firm in NY. We went on our first date in April 2012 and quickly went on our second, third, and fourth dates within the next week. We discovered that despite coming from different parts of world & different backgrounds, the cultures we grew up in are very similar.

Proposal Details: We had a big vacation planned to India in November 2015, so I suspected that he had something planned during that trip. However, I came home from work on October 19, 2015, a Monday night, and Aarjave greeted me at the door with flowers & asked to go for a walk by the Hudson River. After a little complaining about how cold it was outside, I agreed to go. We walked down to the water and Aarjave asked me to close my eyes. When I opened he was on one knee. He very sweetly proposed (though I was too surprised & excited to remember exactly what he said). Before going home to call our family with the news, we stopped into our local Italian restaurant, Inatteso Café, for a glass of sparkling wine. It was a perfect “New York moment” when the manager, who noticed that I couldn’t stop smiling and staring at my ring, brought out glasses of sparkling for the entire restaurant. She brought us to the middle of the room & everyone very sweetly toasted to our engagement.

How did you select your venue? Being from Nichols, SC, I wanted to get married in SC. With so many guests coming from out of state and even different countries, we knew Charleston would be a great long weekend for our guests. We looked at a few plantations and different venues around downtown but The Gadsden House felt really special to us. It was the perfect mix of indoor and outdoor space and the perfect size for our guest count. It felt very “Charleston” and checked all the boxes.

The Invitations: Sarah Reed at Dodeline Design was great. We incorporated hand calligraphy into the invitations and wedding programs. The Save the Date was a bit more fun with a hand drawn map and the invitations we kept classic with pressed gold foil and a fun floral liner.

The Dress: I went to a few shops in NYC with one of my bridesmaids but knew in my heart that I wouldn’t find my dress if my mom & sister weren’t there with me. The week of Christmas my mom, sister, aunt & cousin took a girls’ day trip down to Charleston (from Nichols, SC). Modern Trousseau was the first shop we visited and my aunt spotted the “Minnie” dress displayed in the window. I loved the classic fitted silhouette. Given I’m based in NYC, they were able to accommodate my last round of alterations the week of the wedding. They did a great job on the alterations & were very easy to work with.

Bridesmaids Attire: My bridesmaids were all located in different cities so I wanted to keep it easy for them. I gave them each a color (pink, tan and grey) and a few style ideas for inspiration and they each ran with it. My sister wore a blouse and skirt combo from BHLDN. The others were from various designers.

Men's Attire: Aarjave wore a custom Canali suit from Rothman’s, his go-to men’s store in New York’s Union Square. Shirt, pocket square, shoes & tie were also from Rothman’s. We also had Rothman’s make custom ties for the groomsmen & our fathers and the groomsmen wore their own navy suits.

Guest Count: 115

Tell us all about the décor: Lizz had a ton of great ideas and guided us to some great vendors. She designed the floor plan & helped us pic the décor around it. She had several suggestions that really pulled everything together: the chandelier above the ceremony, the custom pillows on the sofa by the dance floor, the linens for the tables.

Did you decide on a first look? We wanted to be able to enjoy every minute possible of the evening so we decided to do a first look and all of the formal pictures before the ceremony. We were finished with time to spare & spent the half hour before the ceremony relaxing with our wedding party.

Ceremony Details: We wanted a personal connection to the person marrying us. Aarjave’s parents performed the Hindu ceremony on Friday night and Megan’s cousin’s husband performed the Christian ceremony on Saturday. For the Saturday ceremony, we wanted both sides of our family involved. Aarjave’s cousin & Megan’s aunt both did readings: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum, 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 and Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. We wrote our own vows and the Bible used during the ceremony was a family Bible gifted from the bride’s grandmother.

Personal Touch: My late grandfather’s handkerchief was used to wrap my bouquet and my “something borrowed” was a diamond cross pendant safety pinned into my dress.

The Flowers: I was really drawn to deep, bold flowers & greenery. Marsala & deep green were the primary colors with peach, pale pinks and gold as accents. Aside from those colors, we gave Wimberly a ton of creative liberty. We used a mix of dahlias, garden roses, standard roses & ranunculus, and Wimberly’s suggestion to add in millet & pheasant feathers was brilliant.

The Menu: Keeping with our Indian/Southern mix and desire for a laid back, fun atmosphere, we decided on a mix of food stations. 1- Whole Hog pulled pork with cornbread. 2- Indian food station with palak paneer (a spinach dish), roasted eggplant curry, okra with ginger & onion & basmati rice and naan. 3- Finally, a pasta station of handmade gnocchi with sage brown butter and tomatoes.

Passed Hors D’oeuvres for cocktail hour: Fried chicken & waffle cones, collard green wontons, lamb loin bites, buttermilk fried oyster, samosa & a cheese display

Late night snacks: Grilled cheese: ½ vegetarian & ½ with pork belly & tater tots.

Describe your aesthetic + color palette: We kept going back to “classic and elegant”. The florals were what we were the most set on and used that as the primary inspiration: golds, marsala, pink & peach.

What was your first dance song? You Are The Best Thing by Ray LaMontagne

Cake & Sweets: For our dessert & cake tasting with Katelyn Selin, we really gave her free reign. The only guidance we gave her was our desire to have a mix of Indian & Southern desserts. She went above and beyond researching Indian desserts. We did coconut ladooes & rasgulla for the Indian desserts & salted dark chocolate pecan clusters & mini clementine pound cake donuts for the Southern desserts. The wedding cake was three layers: 1- chai cake with lemon ginger cream filling, 2- carrot cake with cream cheese filling, 3- the anniversary layer… chocolate hazelnut cake with sweet cream filling.

The Send-off: We were the last two people on the dancefloor. Lizz had to force us over to the sparkler send-off...we didn’t want the night to end! Once it did end, we kept it simple & Uber’ed to the after party at Prohibition.

Advice for Brides-to-be: Keep things in perspective. You want everything to be perfect on that day and inevitably something will go wrong or won’t be exactly the way you imagined it. Just roll with it. What matters in the end are the memories that you make and the commitment that you and your husband are making to one another. No one is going to remember the exact font that you used on the wedding program or the cute signs by the cheese display that you insisted on having made two days before the wedding.