Branding for a Wedding

Wedding Branding?! Pfft.. My wedding was back in 2008. At that time, I had no idea what sort of a wedding I wanted. I just knew that I wanted fairy lights and perfect tunes.

So when my sister got engaged in early 2013, I was pumped. Assuming that I’d have a lot of reign over the visual – I was ready to go guns blazing. Only a crazy sister like me could think about “branding a wedding”. Who does that?

I wanted gold foil. I wanted colours. I wanted something grand, but not ewe-grand. 
By sheer chance, I hand joined a Calligraphy class and got to meet Kitty Lo. She was keen to work on her calligraphy and I was in love with her work. I wanted her to know how OTT Indian weddings are. They’re so vibrant and intense, whilst I didn’t want to go overkill – I knew it wouldn’t work if we paired things too far back.

She started with a lot of research. A lot.

 

 

 

At some point, I wanted an elephant. Under an Indian archway. 
Thanks Darshna for entertaining my persistence.

 

Kitty worked and sent me draft after draft for each function card. 
Yes, this was a four day wedding with four event cards.

Here are the final cards.

 

 

 

We worked closely with our printers to get the envelope finishing right. To obtain maximum thickness on the cards – we had sheets glued together. Don’t ask. I love our printers. They called and called to ensure we got the right product.

 

The wedding was held at The Pearl Resort in Fiji. It was their first big-fat-Indian-wedding. They were awesome and super supportive. Yes, we had masala chai at breakfast!

 

 

For the photography, Darshna had always wanted Sayher to capture her wedding since she’d met him at our launch party. His style is perfect. Casual and light. He was never invasive. I’ve known him since 2009 and he’s been a great friend. It felt like the most natural thing to have him capturing the special moments.

Here is my sister getting henna applied by our family friend, Usha Chauhan.

 

Amey, one of Kish+Co’s fave clients and since then, a dear friend of mine, was on board for all the wedding decor. Her business name is Pack A Perfect Party and she’s awesome. All she had to roll with was a very loose mood board and some pictures from Pinterest.

She brought her a-game on. She took my stress on and rolled with it. Every morning, she was up before everyone else and the last to catch some sleep. She kept going.

Yes, Indian weddings are detail intense. That is my mum’s hand and she’s wearing the sari she wore at her registry wedding (my sister wore it for my wedding). I adore it.

When the grooms side came, we welcomed them with coconuts (lots of them) and super cool straws.

A bit of Amey’s handiwork before the Henna night.

 

Yes, this is me smiling reluctantly. Wearing one of my favourite saris by Sabyasachi with heirloom weaves. I told you it was a designer wedding!

The red lampshades and existing artwork on the walls was removed to make way for Amey’s natural vision. Love it. Except now my dad has more flax cushions than he ever wanted. Oh dear

I told you branding was a big thing. My beautiful mother-in-law helped us organise 100 cushions to be screen printed for the event and placed all over the hotel. Yes. My elephant was a hit.

There was no Comic Sans to be seen anywhere. We customised as much signage and paper work as we could. It was huge.

 

I wanted to reference old love stories. I remember weekends when all us women in the family would veg out on the couch and watch (and re-watch) scenes from movies like Pride & Prejudice, Emma, One Fine Day, Abhimaan, Lamhe and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I think there is something magical about growing up as only sisters. You grow up really naive about romance and men and dreams really do come true.

 

Amey’s work at the wedding. Coconuts!

Oh hello. My elephant!

Table settings at the wedding. Amey loves all things natural and special request from the bride was to keep things sustainable where possible. So no plastic plates!

Vivek and my sister getting a bit of tumeric paste! Its customary for the bride. And it makes her glow. But of course.

The tassels on her wedding outfit. Amey matched the decor to her shades of her wedding outfit.

Yep. We had to have some manly coconut oil and hot dancers at the reception. They were fab.

Me and my ridiculously stunning sisters and our lovely make up artist, Victoria Martin. Victoria doesn’t always do weddings, but she made the exception for us. And maybe Fiji had a little something to do with it She was phenomenal. She worked in excess, with great patience and attention to detail. Truly. She is awesome.

I always wanted my sisters wedding to be a FEAST on the eyes. Safe to say, I got more than what I wanted. It was inspired. 
Huge love to everyone who collaborated on it. This is only the visual aspect, imagine the food….

Hahaha.

 

 

 

 

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