A Midsummer Night’s Dream Inspired This East-Meets-West Wedding in Upstate New York
While attending reunion events for Hamilton College in upstate New York back in 2017, Preetha Nooyi and Rem Van Aiken Myers both found themselves at the same Indian restaurant after a friend set up a double date. Rem—who was living in San Francisco at the time—had just ended a relationship, and Preetha—who was living in Brooklyn—was uninterested in starting one. Needless to say, sparks did not fly that evening.
Fate had other plans though, and two years later, after Rem moved to New York City, he matched with Preetha on a dating app. “I was intrigued by the striking similarity in our profiles,” he remembers. “I had written that I ‘enjoyed harmonizing in the car on a long drive,’ while Preetha’s profile said, ‘singing on long drives, extra points if you can hit the harmonies!’” Right after they matched, Preetha swiped “yes.”
Rem and Preetha quickly began conversing over text, but it took the pair over a month to connect for a first date in real life. Finally, on a cold and dreary Wednesday in mid-November, they met up at a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I loved how easily we were able to communicate and how, on a first date, we were already able to tackle serious topics,” Preetha says. As they fell into conversation, an initial glass of wine turned into an entire bottle—and a hefty helping of poutine.
Though they had attended the same college in different years, they found that they were both science majors, sang in the choir, knew many of the same classmates, and that Rem happened to be in a fraternity that many of Preetha’s friends were in. Still, Preetha wasn’t entirely sold: She was leaving four days after their first date to travel for a month in India and Argentina and doubted that such a new connection would last while she was abroad.
Rem, however, wasn’t so easily dissuaded and took her out on two more dates that week. First, to a karaoke bar where they sang Bon Jovi, and the next evening—the night before Preetha’s flight to India—to a shellfish restaurant in Brooklyn. He then made it a point to bid her farewell in person the morning she left for India.
Somehow, distance and time didn’t dampen the connection. Preetha and Rem made a point to communicate every day while she was abroad. “It wasn’t until a month into our relationship when we discovered, during a call with the mutual friend who organized our first meeting in 2017, that we had crossed paths all those years ago,” Preetha explains. “He remembers me as arriving late to dinner, and I remember him as, ‘the guy who talked with his hands.’ A friend of ours taught us the word bashert, a Yiddish word for soulmate. It’s cheesy, but our relationship has so many coincidences that we can’t help but wonder if we may have found such a person in each other.”
In August 2022, after three years together, the couple took a short getaway with their four-month-old puppy to Wolf Cove Inn in Poland, Maine, a dog-friendly bed and breakfast situated on a lake north of Portland. “Before we drove up, Rem suspiciously suggested that I get a manicure, and sent me to my favorite nail technician for a mani-pedi combo,” Preetha recalls. “I had a feeling something exciting might happen!”
Rem surprised Preetha with an itinerary that included all of her favorite summer activities, before he revealed the big surprise: a photo shoot for their puppy. “There are few things I love more than taking cute pictures of our dog, especially when she was so small,” Preetha laughs.
“Our photographer, Tyler from TyGar Photography, met us at Wolf Cove Inn, where he took a series of gorgeous photos of Aja,” she continues. “As the sun set, Rem tied Aja to the stairs and led me down to the dock. He explained that he wanted some photos of just us. We faced each other and Rem took my hands in his before asking me, ‘Do you know what’s happening?’ In disbelief, I awkwardly asked if this was a proposal, to which Rem replied, ‘Yes.’ At that moment, he got down on one knee, ring in hand, and asked me if I would marry him. I burst out in joyful laughter and said yes!” Everyone at Wolf Cove Inn was in on Rem’s proposal plans, and as Preetha said yes, they were met with applause and cheers from the other guests and staff at the Inn.
After heading back to Greenwich, Connecticut, to celebrate their engagement with both of their immediate families, the couple went to work on planning their wedding. “We felt that while our marriage is about us, our wedding is a celebration of the union of and for our two families,” Preetha says. “Despite their different backgrounds, both of our families deeply value tradition, and we wanted to honor that through every aspect of design.”
Preetha worked with artists and designers from both East and West for her entire wedding weekend wardrobe, tapping stylist Prerana Srikantappa to help bring her vision to life. “My faith is very important to me and my family, so Rem and I had a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on June 1, a day picked by our priest,” the bride says. “For this event, I wanted to keep things classically South Indian and I wanted my look to come directly from my parents. My mother sourced traditional red and gold Kanchipuram silk saris from Angadi Silks in Bangalore and Nalli Chinnasami Chetty in Madras, two houses we have decades-long relationships with.”
Preetha and Rem both share a love for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and felt that the feverish heat and lush florals of late July in the northeast would work perfectly with that theme for their bigger wedding with family and friends. With that in mind, they thought of their three wedding events at the bride’s family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Hyatt Greenwich, and at Blue Hill at Stone Barns as individual acts, each becoming more and more topsy-turvy. “Our hope was to leave guests feeling enchanted, as if in a fever dream, wondering if what they experienced was real,” Preetha says.
The celebrations kicked off with a mehndi, a women-only event held in the bride’s family’s backyard in Greenwich. “We wanted this event to look distinctly South Indian but feel familiar to all the guests,” Preetha says. “I took inspiration from my parent’s family homes in Madras and Mangalore to help direct the decor. Most importantly, I wanted this event to take my mother back to her childhood. My favorite memories of my mother are mostly in India; listening to her sing Carnatic songs with my grandmother and reading while drinking hot cups of South Indian-style coffee on the oonjal, a large swing traditionally found in Indian Tamil homes. Brass pots, jasmine, marigold, and dark green foliage helped us bring India to Greenwich.” South Indian finger foods and other vegetarian fare were served alongside a peach bourbon charm cake by Elizabeth Mayhew, while the New York-based band Akshara played traditional Carnatic music.
