It was a two-day Indian wedding. The Sangeet was at the Hilton at Penn’s Landing on September 21, 2018. The next day, September 22, the traditional Indian wedding ceremony was at Hilton Penn’s landing in the morning and reception was at the SugarHouse Casino in the evening. On 9/20/18 we had a smaller cocktail party at Philadelphia Distilling for close friends and family.

We met online when Krishna was in Boston for work. Our first date was at a Trident Booksellers and Cafe on Newbury Street in Boston. After that, Krishna returned to Syracuse and we ended keeping in touch. Eventually, Krishna moved to New York City, and a year later I followed him there.

Krishna asked me to plan a birthday party for him in Philadelphia. I already figured he was up to something because he usually doesn’t make a big deal about his birthday. That weekend after brunch with our friends, Krishna took me on a walk around the city and proposed at the Rodin Museum. Afterwards, we went to one of our favorite museums, the Barnes Foundation, where both our families and friends were waiting with a champagne toast.

I grew up and went to medical school in Philadelphia, so it holds a special place in my heart. Even having spent time in Boston and New York, I still believe Philadelphia is the best city, which is why we chose Hilton Penn’s Landing and SugarHouse Casino. Both waterfront venues were appealing to us because they were spacious and could accommodate our 400+ guest list. We wanted to incorporate some Philadelphia themed touches into our wedding, including welcome posters from Mike Doughty, a LOVE sign logo backdrop for our Sangeet by DFW Event Design, Bluecoat Gin and Stateside Vodka served at the Sangeet, and Weckerly’s ice cream dessert at our reception. We re-used our wedding welcome signs as our guest book at the reception. For the Sangeet favors, we had a polaroid photo booth with homemade magnetic picture frames. Our favors for the reception were boxes of playing cards that doubled as escort cards.

Friday’s dinner and Saturday’s lunch was catered by Royal Palace from New York, one of Krishna’s favorite Indian restaurants. We worked with Royal Palace to create a fun street food themed menu. They even made one of Krishna’s late night NYC street food favorites, chicken and rice. The reception cocktail hour and dinner menu was an elevated Indian buffet from Moghul Palace. Menu items included lamb chops and Indian fusion bao buns. For dessert, we skipped the cake and had ice cream sandwich carts from Weckerly’s Ice Cream in Fishtown.

My favorite moment was walking down the aisle during the ceremony with my parents.

The one thing we couldn’t live without was our family and friends. Krishna and I really wanted to make this event special for them, and that is what made the planning process and the actual wedding fun for us.

Nothing major went wrong thanks to our wedding planner, Urvashi Mishra from Electric Karma East Coast.

My favorite detail was my reception dress, which was designed by Bibhu Mohapatra, a well-known New York City designer, who has designed for women like Michelle Obama and Priyanka Chopra. Krishna’s family has been big fans of Bibhu for many years and feel strongly connected to his work because Bibhu is originally from their home state of Orissa in India. Krishna surprised me by contacting Bibhu and set up an appointment for me to meet him and try on gowns in his New York office. The best part was that Bibhu accepted our invitation and was a guest of honor at our wedding.

Another amazing detail was a live wedding painter, Lakshmi Sarkar, that Krishna’s sister hired to paint our reception. The painting came out beautifully and captured the essence of our black tie reception at SugarHouse Casino.

Krishna and I didn’t have to plan a honeymoon before the wedding. One day after the wedding, we booked an impromptu trip to Iceland and left the very next day.