I can’t help but smile when looking at this gorgeous celebration of love hosted at non other than a goat farm. Yes, you read that right. A goat farm. And it’s basically the best. Planned to perfection by Gather Together Events with stunning florals from Lindsay Rae Design, every image from Amber Gress Photography makes me wish I pulled the invite to this love-filled day. See it all in the VAULT.
[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/121200272 600 338]
| Share this gorgeous gallery on | |
From The Bride…Our two-day wedding ceremony in NC was everything I could have wished for! The mixing of cultures and people from around the world, all the fun I had designing it, and the food was a dream!
We ended up hosting our wedding in NC at a Hindu temple and then at a Goat Farm with an Inn. We both live in NYC, but both of us are from NC and our families still live there. Rachit has an office that is headquartered out of NC, so he is there every month. In a sense, having the wedding in NC was a destination, people traveled from all over the world to attend the wedding, however, there was also a large contingency of NC friends and family who didn’t have far to go! It was so fun for my parents that I was down in NC so much more for wedding planning!
Rachit and I have a somewhat fun “how we met” story – it all started on Twitter. As I mentioned, both of us are from NC, but we met in NYC. A mutual friend of ours through the NC connection “announced” Rachit on Twitter when he moved up to NYC and I decided to hit the FOLLOW button. As time went by we noticed we had a lot in common, especially when it came to food and adventures each one of us embarked on around NYC. After about 3 months of banter back and forth on Twitter, I asking him out on a food “friend date”. We had a blast. Two and a half weeks, and 5 dates later it was pretty obvious that we were both really excited about this. Rachit had planned a long trip home to NC for three weeks that month, so we parted ways but kept in touch. The day he got back, we arranged another food adventure in Bushwick and the rest is history: 6 years later we are still taking adventures and still obviously really excited (and in love!) with each other.
Our Friday Hindu ceremony was at a Hindu temple in Morrisville. The rest of the weekend was at Celebrity Dairy Inn & Farm in Siler City. I had been to Celebrity Dairy before when I was younger for a Sunday supper series with my parents, I remembered loving the food and the atmosphere there, so it came to mind immediately. I reached out to Flemming, the owner, to talk about details and everything just clicked! Flemming and her team source all the food locally and were able to create a menu from scratch for us which was really important, since we are big foodies. Plus, his family has a lot of vegetarians and my family doesn’t eat beef or pork. Flemming even incorporated some special Jewish and Hindu dishes into our menu! She also allowed us to ship in our own local beers and wine from our favorite shop in NY. As a wedding industry person, being able to not have constraints was really important to me, plus, the price was right!
The two day celebration and the melding of our two cultures was so special for us and something that all of our guests commented on a lot after the wedding. Jewish and Hindu ceremonies actually have a lot of similarities like the 7 circular processions under the Mandap/Chuppah, and the lighting of the fire, and the 7 blessings.
I only went to one gown store to find, and I only tried on 3 dresses – by my friend and talented designer Rebecca Schoneveld. I have worked in the industry and in fashion long enough to have a pretty good ideal of what I wanted for my gown. Working with Rebecca allowed me to have a dress that was not only stunning but custom designed for me, I tweaked the design of her Gemma gown to create my look. It was the last dress I tried on, and when I did, I just knew it felt right. Also, as an accessory person (Hushed Commotion), I had mostly designed my ideal headpiece by then, and they perfectly complimented one another!
I had a lot of fun with my headpiece(s)! I made drawings and consulted with my hair stylist, Stacy at StylesOnB (who also came down to NC to do my hair!), about the best way to secure this unique piece to my head so that it would look natural but also be secure throughout the whole day. I love red, and it also is a prominent Indian wedding color, so I custom designed the silk flowers to draw in that special element. I love real flowers, but sometimes you can’t get the blooms you want, or they fall out as the day goes by, so silk flowers were a perfect choice. I love gold accents and wanted it to feel rustic but special, the vine detail with crystals and gold flowers brought all that together. For Friday: I designed and created the head chain that I wore with my Lengha, as well as my decorative hand chains, it was a very fun challenge!
I love shoes, but I wanted them to feel special to me, so I decided to embellish a pair of shoes for my Jewish ceremony! I used materials from my headpiece so that it would all feel cohesive, then, I went all out with the detailing! I am not a big fan of ivory shoes, so having a blush colored heel with gold detailing felt right for me.
I designed all of the paper goods myself, including the watercolor painting. I went to design school and knew that I would have a lot of opinions on the design, so I just went for it all myself! It was tough, everyone has opinions to consider, but I love how we were able to combine the whimsical romantic feel I love with Rachit’s love for clean lines. I loved making the ceremony program for Saturday, I had asked all the guests that RSVP’ed to the wedding to add a one line “Words of Wisdom” for us; I then took all of those wonderful lines and scattered them all across the outside of the program so everyone could enjoy the wisdom people had shared. My other favorite part was doing the little drawing of us that we used on the program and the hot sauce bottles. That was tricky though because all the items with our drawing on it, I couldn’t share with Rachit or he would have seen my dress before the wedding! I asked his brother for a lot of advice instead.
One of the most special parts of the planning process was working on our Ketubah with my godmother. She is a paper cut artist and calligrapher, and was a huge part of my artistic growth as a young girl. Being able to bring her work into my wedding was a true honor and blessing. She was incredibly understanding and creative when it came to combining aspects of Jewish and Hindu art for the final piece. We were all floored when we saw the final result, it’s spectacular!
I flew down my good friend and superbly talented florist Lindsay Rae to do all the flowers for the wedding. She came in the week before the wedding and stayed with me at my parents house. It was so much fun making flowers on the porch and drinking wine in the evenings! I knew I wanted really lush and whimsical flowers for the wedding, and I had also made a deal with Rachit: he is very practical, he never buys me flowers as gifts, it’s always fun stuff like a new Kindle or a camera. He thinks flowers are a waste of money since they die quickly. So, I told him: I was going to make up for all the flowers he will never buy me – at our wedding! Lindsay could see my vision perfectly, she incorporated the red that tied in my headpiece and our general weekend colors, as well as all the foliage and the rustic vibe that I love. There was even some ivy from my parents house in my bouquet! One of my favorite things she did was the tall arrangements at the tables, I love that they were all foliage, no flowers – it just looked so beautiful, not too fussy and wonderfully unexpected. The chuppah was adorned with lovely draped foliage which perfectly complimented the custom wood chuppah that my godmother designed and created for our wedding. Also, using the ivy on the hanging farm table chains was genius!
The weekend of the ceremony..was chilly! We had hoped it would be warmer, the beginning of the week it was almost 80 degrees and yet by Saturday it was 45, but we made it work. We had a big clear top heated tent for the reception, so we just moved it all inside. As everyone always says, have a back up plan, and go with the flow the day of the wedding. It was a bummer not to do it outside, but in the end it worked out really beautifully!
Photography: Amber Gress | Cinematography: Birdhouse Productions | Event Planning: Gather Together | Floral Design: Lindsay Rae Design | Wedding Dress: Rebecca Schoneveld | Cakes: Details Cake Design | Ceremony Venue: The Hindu Society Of NC | Reception Venue: Celebrity Dairy Farm & Inn | Catering: Celebrity Dairy Farm & Inn | Hair: Styles On B | Lighting: Get Lit Special Event Lighting | DJ: Bunn DJ Company | Groom's Attire: My Suit | Rabbi: Rabbi A. Ettin | Bride's Ring: Custom Made In NY | Bride's Wedding Blazer: Ann Taylor | Cinematography Editing: Love + Brain Films | Custom Cake Topper: Anthony Lamberty | Custom Ketubah + Chuppah Frame: Galia Goodman (the Brides Godmother) | Decor Furniture: Paisley & Jade | Groom's Ring: Jewelsmith | Groom's Tie + Pocket Square: J.Crew | Hair Accessories + Shoes: Hushed Commotion | Hindu Attire: From India | Invitations + Stationery: Hushed Commotion | Klezmer Band: Freylach Time | Linen Rentals + Draping: Party Tables | Stationery Printing: Rolling Press | Tent + Rentals: Party Reflections
Join The Conversation
favorite (0) share share (0) pin (0)
