Aditi and Ketan, The Palayana Hua Hin, Thailand

Aditi and Ketan’s wedding at The Palayana Hua Hin, Thailand was a meticulously planned affair with fun activities, delectable food and stunning decor. Here, bride Aditi shares her memories and highlights from the celebrations.

How We Met
“We’ve been dating for 11 years! It all started when a friend of mine was at a national football camp. Ketan was there too. And my friend told Ketan that he wanted to speak with this girl Ketan was on the phone with. So they switched phones. Ketan and I ended up speaking till the next morning! We started meeting and began dating within two months. We’ve grown up together! It’s been a decade of absolute insanity, holidays, sneaking out and meeting, getting to know each others friends and the families, figuring out our careers, struggles, sickness, working through our own ups and downs.”

The Proposal
“The proposal happened in May 2018. It was my uncle’s birthday and I knew something was fishy. My uncle never celebrates his birthday out and this celebration was at the Dusit. I was going in jeans and a tee but my cousin said we should dress up. And so we did.

Ketan had just decided one fine day that he would propose within the week. When we got there, we saw the place had the most gorgeous lights and diyas, pictures of our last 11 years strung up everywhere and it was stunning. He managed to get all our closest family and friends together and when I walked in, I almost passed out when he started singing ‘I think I want to marry you’- a song which I had shown him 5 years ago and said “This is how a proposal is done”. He remembered! It was so funny because I started putting the ring on myself until someone yelled that he had to do it, and I also forgot to say ‘Yes’ because I was just shaking too much!”

Wedding Venue
“I’ve always been a water baby and I was very clear that we had to have a beach venue for the wedding. We wanted an intimate celebration and after we decided on Thailand, we looked at about 6 hotels. As soon as we walked in to The Palayana Hua Hin, we knew it was the closest to what we wanted. The perfect beach, the perfect number of rooms to host our 115 guests, amazing food and the nicest manager, Sumeet! To close the deal our parents flew down with us for the second visit and helped us finalize the food and decor and that was it!”

Wedding Functions

Haldi Pool Party
“The party started with a haldi by the pool. The event went on until the evening. Essentially, we were smeared with haldi and eventually pushed into the pool! We even had some mehndi artists but since I’m not quite fond of mehndi and don’t believe in the customs I decided to give it a skip, while the other guests got mehndi applied, we were just chilling in the pool.”

Sangeet
“The sangeet in the evening featured 6 performances and no solos! It was a Salman-Shahrukh dance off. I grew up obsessed with SRK while Ketan was obsessed with Salman! It was hysterical and Ketan just stole the show that night. It was the most fun Bollywood dance war with so much emotion and so many expressions that I don’t think we have a single picture with a straight face! And since we all love to dance, the party went on till 4 am. The décor for the night included basic yellow lights, fresh flowers, center pieces and candles.”

Phoolon Ka Gehena
“The next morning we had the ‘phoolon ka gehena’, a Kashmiri ceremony where the bride is adorned with flowers and gota jewellery made by the family. However, whatever it was titled, this was essentially a brunch. There was some yummy food and some super funky jewellery made by my aunt which turned out to be the highlight of the wedding.”

Wedding
“The wedding was in the evening and I entered to the song ‘Hawa Hawai’. Since the baraat was still on when I entered, I decided to join in and we danced down the aisle together to the gorgeous mandap with white flowers all around.

During the wedding planning process, I had explained to the pandit and he had to ensure nothing in the ceremony was unequal or highlighted gender disparity in any way. So, while there was no sindoor or mangalsutra, we took the pheras walking side by side.

A dinner and some beautiful speeches followed the wedding and post the dinner everyone changed into swimwear and the pool party was back on. Ketan and I stayed up walking on the beach, swimming in the sea and watching the sunrise with our closest friends and siblings and that is how we concluded our beautiful wedding celebrations. It was absolutely perfect!”

The Wedding Makers
Venue: The Palayana Hua Hin, Thailand
Decor: Knoit, Thailand
Bride’s Outfits: Raw Mango (Sangeet and Reception), Sabyasachi (Wedding)
Groom’s Outfits: Diwan Sahab, Zegna
Makeup Artist and Hair Stylist: Ziggy and Bali

Photography: The Lumiere Project
Videography: Amit Batra

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