Napa Valley inspired South Indian & Gujrati Wedding in Virginia
Careers took our couples to California and they wanted to bring California back with them to welcome their guests for their wedding. Countless details during their wedding events were personalized to make their friends, family and guests feel special.
The couple held three events, a Friday evening Sangeet at Raspberry plains manor and a ceremony and reception at Lansdowne Resort and Spa. At Raspberry Plains they utilized the outdoor patio and indoor ballroom and the saying for the night was “Dosas vs. Dhoklas” to honor their backgrounds in a playful way – Dosas for the South Indian side and Dhoklas for the Gujurati. A few design details to note from this Garba Sangeet: a ground level backdrop setup for their stage with swing seating for the both of them, benches surrounding the dance floor to allow for casual sit down spots during dance performances and a cute bangle cart stood on the outskirts of the dinner tables to serve as favors for guests.
On Saturday the couple hosted their wedding ceremony and reception. The afternoon ceremony was hosted in the Lansdowne Pavilion. It is a beautiful outdoor space, great option if you’re planning a COVID time wedding for 2021, with a patio extension. During the time Urmila and Sagar held their ceremony – all sides of the Pavilion were outfitted with glass doors which have since been removed, so now it is a wooden outdoor structure with openings on all sides.
We set up a square four post Mandap structure atop a riser for their traditional Hindu ceremony. Variation of color and texture were very important to the bride and to deliver on this we ordered a unique selection of floral and foliage to give dimension to the final look. The overall design concept was textured florals in a combination of bright and fall tones with an organic vibe. We suspended terrariums behind the Mandap chairs to give a home garden type feel and began the aisle with wooden crates painted in a cherry wood color embellished again with the terrariums and a few bud vases filled with blooms in coordinating colors.
The reception complemented ceremony floral colors to allow for a repurpose of florals between the events to maximize their use and impact. Repurposing can get tricky between events because you have to ensure the quality of the flower maintains from one event to the next, you also have to make sure that the way it is assembled together can be reinterpreted in the design for the second event. There typically isn’t enough time between events to pull flowers out of one type of arrangement and recreate a whole new one, you need to budget for completely new flowers for that. We took all the cages, these are the pieces holding all of the flowers onto the Mandap, off and utilized them to line the front of the candle stands for the reception stage. Additionally we were able to take the Eucalyptus garlands lining the sides of the aisle during the ceremony to line the front of the reception stage alongside a row of candles in glass.
The linens were in a neutral color and the table layout was designed to highlight special friends and family members on long table sections. Their welcome table featured sweet details from milestones of their relationship and a friendly reminder of an eternal rivalry Duke & UNC alums. Each place setting had a handwritten thank you note from the couple unique to each guest, they had 400 guests! How incredibly sweet is that! On table level we maintained a similar floral and foliage distribution throughout, with slight variations of vessels. We did 4 different types of centerpieces between all of the tables to keep interest while being mindful of visual obstructions for guests. Please pin any images that inspire you for your own celebration or save them for your consultation with us! We’d love to hear from you so leave questions and comments below and our design team will answer them!
