An Intimate Hindu Wedding Amid the Santa Monica Mountains
Megna Patel and Amish Yajnik first got to know each other at a wedding in Philadelphia in 2013. But after that weekend, Megna, a corporate lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, returned to Southern California, and pharmacist Amish went back to his life in Philadelphia. “Eventually, I worked up the courage to send her a message,” Amish remembers. “One message turned into endless phone calls, FaceTimes, and, eventually, visits.”
Megna moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2014 to attend law school, and the pair continued to make long distance work, taking buses, trains, and planes to visit each other whenever they could. In 2016, Amish moved to New York City. When Megna graduated in 2017, she moved there too—for the first time, they were finally in the same city.
They’d been dating for about four years when they got engaged in Greece. The day of Amish’s planned proposal—which Megna knew nothing about—they had spent hours in the sun riding ATVs with friends. Megna had made a reservation at a restaurant, with a special request for a sunset-view table, but by the end of a full day spent in the sun, all she wanted to do was have a chill evening. She suggested they cancel the dinner reservation and instead grab food from a local vendor and walk down to the cliffs to enjoy the iconic Oia sunset on Santorini. Although this threw a complete wrench in Amish’s plans, he agreed and reworked his proposal plan while Megna got ready.
They headed out for their evening just as the sun was starting to set, and Megna paused on the balcony of the hotel to take in the magical view. As she was looking out, she noticed a drone (which turned out to be one that Amish had hired to document their proposal) flying nearby. When she turned around to point it out to Amish, he was on one knee.
Once engaged, the two decided to get married at Saddlerock Ranch in Malibu, California. “We originally wanted to find an event home with a large backyard space we could utilize for our wedding and reception to maintain the intimate vibe we were going for,” Megna explains. “However, with capacity and noise restrictions, we moved our search to outdoor venues in the Malibu area that allowed music to be played later in the night, so we could spend more time celebrating.”
The pithi ceremony started on the morning of June 28, and the wedding weekend officially commenced with a turmeric bath. “The ritual is to prepare the bride’s skin, as turmeric provides a glow for the bride and is a lot of fun,” Megna says. “There would typically be full events the week leading up to the actual wedding ceremony for a Hindu wedding, but we wanted to change things up and have a more chill, modern wedding that felt like us, while still partaking in all of the cultural and religious aspects.” Later that evening, vegetarian food was served from a food truck and guests had the opportunity to get a mehndi (henna). “The night turned into a big dance party with our friends,” Megna remembers. “It was the perfect start to the wedding weekend.”
Thinking through outfits is one of the things Megna spent the most time on prior to the wedding, and she knew she wanted to wear something traditional yet modern for the wedding ceremony. “Hindu brides traditionally wear certain colors, one of which is red, so I started by going to a local Indian clothing shop and browsing through thread swatches of the various shades of red and choosing one that I loved,” she explains. “From there, I thought through the style of the outfit I wanted to wear, which is called a lehenga—made up primarily of a blouse and skirt—and the fabric I would want the lehenga to be.”
She decided on banarasi silk fabrics and worked directly with fashion designer Manishi Joshi of Prémya by Manishii. “She sent me sketches and we finally narrowed it down to my favorite, a scoop-neck blouse with a low back,” Megna says. “Manishi then started sending me sketches of the skirt portion of my lehenga, and we decided on the general embroidery style and the style of my dupattas, which are the shawl-like scarves that are worn on the bride’s head and shoulder. She would send me photos and videos throughout the process so I could see how it was coming together.” All of the beading and embroidery was sewn by hand, and Megna worked with Manishi on all of the other outfits that she wore throughout the wedding weekend, as well as the bridesmaids’ looks.
For jewelry, Megna focused on earrings, a necklace, and bangles. “Jewelry for Indian brides ranges from heavy to simple, and I wanted to go as simple as I could but also have sentimental value,” Megna notes. “I decided to wear the earrings and necklace my mother wore for one of her wedding events and added a headpiece that one of my aunts wore for her wedding!” For her bangles, the bride’s mother kindly went to countless shops in India to find bracelets that matched the wedding look perfectly. With respect to her hair and makeup, Megna knew she wanted her hair to be in a bun because she wanted her dupatta to sit on her bun. She worked with two sisters, Diana and Nancy Alba, who understood the look she was going for and nailed it.
Amish’s outfit was purchased by his parents from India, while the turban-style hat, called a safa, that he wore was made by Manishi using the same fabric as Megna’s wedding outfit, along with a pocket square, which tied their two outfits together.
Guests were encouraged to wear traditional Indian attire, Indian-fusion wear, or semiformal American attire. Most important were comfortable shoes for the grassy venue. For the wedding ceremony, they asked family members to wear shades of sage and olive green, while the bridal party wore emerald green—Eagles green, more accurately!—and cream.
The wedding ceremony was a traditional Hindu ceremony performed by a pandit (priest). “The traditional Hindu wedding ceremony is filled with symbolic moments that we wanted to make sure to incorporate,” Megna says. “To make sure all of our guests could follow along with the ceremony, we wrote wedding programs that included a short description of the different steps.”
