An East-Meets-West Wedding at the Ford Family Home in Seal Harbor, Maine
In 2014, Anisha Ford and Robert Kunkel were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend while they were both undergraduate students at the University of Chicago. Eight years later, they got engaged in May of 2022. Anisha, who is now an independent consultant, had just finished grad school and was moving out of her apartment in Cambridge back to Chicago. “Robby and I decided to go up to Maine, where my family has a vacation home, for a quick post-graduation celebration before finishing the move,” she recalls of how Robert, a commodities trader, proposed. “We went for a walk at Little Long Pond, formerly owned by David Rockefeller and our favorite place on Mount Desert Island—and Robby asked me to get married at the very spot where we would take our dog, Naga, swimming when we lived in Maine during the pandemic.”
Their wedding took place at Anisha’s family’s home in Seal Harbor, Maine, on September 7, 2024. Wallace K. Harrison—the architect behind the Metropolitan Opera House and many other notable buildings—designed the house, and it was once owned by Nelson Rockefeller, the former Vice President, and later by Anisha’s grandmother, Josephine Ford.
“I grew up going to our Maine summer home but didn’t have the best relationship with the place,” Anisha admits. “I always felt like I had been forced to leave my friends back home in Florida for the summer months. But my feelings changed when Robby and I went during the summer of 2020. I was with someone I loved, and I was able to appreciate how beautiful the island was. We initially planned to stay only two weeks, but that quickly turned to four months. There was so much uncertainty due to COVID, but we were able to create a haven and some amount of peace in our lives during those four months.”
When the couple got engaged at Little Long Pond—a stone’s throw away from the Maine house—there was no question about where they wanted to host their wedding. “Our favorite weddings that we have attended in the past have been ones where you can feel the couple’s presence in every choice that was made, and the entire wedding felt uniquely theirs,” Anisha says. “We knew we wanted a wedding that could tell our 10-year love story—a blended wedding that honored the Hindu culture that I was raised in and that my family still practices—and that we wanted to get married at the house.”
That said, translating these ideas into planning and design decisions did not initially come naturally to Anisha and Robby. “Some couples have a very specific vision of what they want their wedding to look like, but for Robby and me, it was a blank slate,” Anisha says. Thankfully, their planner, Rachel Sisson of R.L. Sisson Events, stepped in to take the things they value in their relationship and manifest them into tangible design choices. For example, their escort cards—designed to look like their dog Naga—were created by Julie King Studio. Additionally, King and her design team played off of the Seal Harbor location and created a custom monogram featuring two seals and the couple’s initials, which were featured on design elements throughout the wedding weekend. “Our wedding was seamless and beautiful, and that can be entirely attributed to Rachel’s incredible planning and eye for design as well as our amazing vendors, whom we felt we could trust completely,” Anisha says.
The wedding weekend began on Friday with the couple’s Hindu ceremony. A small platform overlooking the ocean was set up in the backyard, and it was decorated with flowers from Afterglow Florals that had an organic, modern feel. Guests were seated on the lawn facing the Atlantic Ocean as well as on the upper deck of the home. “Robby and I walked down the aisle together, which eased both of our nerves and allowed for a private moment alone together before walking out,” Anisha remembers. “We sat on the platform with our parents on either side, and it was so nice to feel their presence and support.”
To prepare for this ceremony, Anisha and Robby traveled with her parents to Mumbai to purchase looks for the entire family. “The trip was special as it was Robby’s first time in India, so we made sure to fit in a bit of sightseeing amidst the wedding shopping festivities,” Anisha remembers. “I knew I wanted a traditional red lehenga. I love the drama of a red lehenga and felt it was a nice contrast to my more traditional white dress for our Saturday ceremony.”
The bride and her mother were instantly drawn to Anita Dongre’s designs, a prominent Indian designer who draws a lot of inspiration from Jaipur, the city where Anisha’s mother is from. They ended up purchasing all of the outfits for the women in the family from Dongre. “Traditionally, Southeast Asian brides go for a very bold and dramatic beauty look that is in line with the gorgeous clothing and jewelry,” Anisha explains. “However, I don’t feel the most comfortable in a bold makeup look, so Caitlyn of Caitlyn Meyer Pro created a glamorous yet natural look where I still felt like myself.”
During the ceremony, the bride and groom wore two pieces of cloth draped over their shoulders, tied together by their sisters as a symbol of unity between their families. “A significant part of the ceremony was the pheras, a Hindu ritual where we walked around a fire seven times,” Anisha says. “Each lap represented our journey together and the vows we made to one another.” For Robby, the Hindu ceremony served as an important symbol of the union of their two families. “I knew I wanted to marry Anisha when I saw how effortlessly she connected with my family,” he says. “We were deeply touched by the emotional and literal support of our parents, who sat on either side of us.”
The ceremony ended with the couple feeding each other Indian sweets, and guests threw flower petals as they exited the lawn. From there, guests boarded private boats from Mount Desert Island and were shuttled to Islesford Dock Restaurant for the welcome dinner. During cocktail hour, everyone enjoyed passed hors d’oeuvres, a raw bar, and watching the sunset over the mountains. The bride and her guests of honor took a moment away to practice their sangeet dance one last time, and everyone enjoyed a family-style dinner.
