We love it when a couple combines their backgrounds into one truly memorable day – and that’s exactly what Laura, a registered dietitian, and Raj, who owns two urgent care facilities in New Jersey, did in planning their interfaith Hindu-Jewish wedding.
With two ceremonies in one day – Hindu during the day, followed by Jewish in the evening – the couple approached planning with the overarching goal of crafting a cohesive day illustrating the true merging of their families, lives, and cultures. Take one look at Dave Robbins Photography’s gorgeous captures of the day and you’ll see just how successfully they pulled it off.
Laura and Raj took advantage of the fact that Hindu and Jewish weddings both take place under a canopy – symbolizing the home the couple will build together – and decided to use the same structure for their mandap and chuppah to symbolize the fact that they are building one home that embraces both of their cultures and religions.
And we totally and completely adore the couple’s custom floral ketubah by Rachel Marks of Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor Tallulah Ketubahs. Laura and Raj wanted their text written in English, Hebrew, and Hindi, and Rachel made it happen – plus she incorporated some of the colors and flowers the pair used in their wedding! And, unsurprisingly, Laura reports that Rachel was an absolute dream to work with.
There’s so much more we could say about this awesome wedding, but we’ll leave the rest to the bride, who looked stunning in both her traditional Indian outfit and red and gold as well as her white wedding dress by Azul by Liancarlo…
How We Met
Laura, the bride: Raj and I met our sophomore year at Franklin and Marshall College. We were in the same friend circle for many years, but did not start dating until 2014. We were nervous we would break apart our group of friends if things didn’t end up working out. In the end, it was definitely worth taking the risk!
Two Ceremonies
We got married twice. First we did our Baraat and Indian ceremony at the Tarrytown House Estate. Raj rode down their long driveway on a white horse, accompanied by live music and all of our friends and family dancing around him! Later that evening, we had a candlelit Jewish ceremony at sundown at Tappan Hill Mansion. Honestly, we fell in love with Tappan Hill Mansion the moment we saw it.
The added bonus was that Abigail Kirsch is their caterer and the food is incredible! We wanted the feeling of a destination wedding that would be convenient for all of our friends and family. This worked perfectly, because everyone stayed at Tarrytown House Estate and then Tappan Hill Mansion was a 5 minute shuttle ride away.
Coral Crush
We used a wedding planner, Erganic Design, to help bring our ideas to fruition. Even though we technically had separate Indian and Jewish wedding ceremonies, we wanted the events to feel cohesive and as if we were truly meshing our families, lives and cultures together. We chose coral as our main color.
For the Indian celebrations, we used coral with brighter jewel tones (blues, purples). For the Jewish celebration, we used coral with lighter peach tones and greenery. Another theme throughout our wedding, was the use of lanterns. We used them on our invitations, center pieces for our Friday night Sangeet, as well as for our Jewish ceremony.
Invitation
Our invitations and all stationery were custom designed by ourselves and our wedding planner, Erganic Design. We really wanted something personalized, unique and also fun! We absolutely loved how everything turned out.
Hair + Makeup
Beautini did an amazing job on my hair and makeup. Friday evening for the Sangeet, I wanted to do something fun, so I went with a French side braid. On Saturday morning for the Indian wedding ceremony I decided on a side bun.
For the Jewish ceremony, I wanted to do something that felt more like how I would wear hair on a typical day and wore my hair half up with loose curls. For the Indian festivities, I had more dramatic make up, and went more natural for the Jewish wedding.
Two Dresses
Raj and I picked out our Indian outfits together and then my white dress for the Jewish wedding was a surprise for him. For our Sangeet on Friday night, I wore a beautiful blue and gold lengha with a peach scarf that matched his peach sherwani. For our Indian ceremony on Saturday morning, we went for traditional red and gold outfits.
Again, I wore a lengha and he a sherwani. The Indian outfits were so beautiful and intricate. We got all of our Indian clothes (as did many of our guests) from Nazranaa in Edison, NJ. They were incredible to work with!
As for my white wedding dress, I got it from Elizabeth Johns in Ardmore, PA. It was an A-line, strapless, sweetheart neckline dress by Azul by Liancarlo and I loved it immediately. It was so comfortable, light and whimsical. After initially trying it on, I went to other stores to see more dresses and I just couldn’t stop thinking about that dress and how I felt in it. My mom also surprised me and had my new initials sewn into my dress!
Accessories
The jewelry I wore for the Indian celebrations was all chosen by my mother-in-law and she did an amazing job. Much of it, she wore for her wedding, which was very special for me.
For the Jewish ceremony, I wore a necklace that my mom and I designed from my grandmother’s wedding ring. Even though I wear it almost every day, it was important to me to feel like she was with me on our wedding day. My earrings and bracelets were all gifts I have received from Raj in the past! My veil was also from Elizabeth Johns. We asked my dress designer to send us some extra fabric from my dress and had my extremely talented tailor, Nilah & Company, make my veil to match my dress!
Shoes
For our Indian events, I wore gold Lilly Pulitzer wedges. For the Jewish ceremony I wore the most comfortable silver, open toed Ferragamo shoes with block heels, an ankle strap and the signature Ferragamo bow. I knew we had several events with a lot of dancing and so comfort was an important factor in shoe choice for me.
The handsome groom
For the Sangeet on Friday night, Raj wore a peach colored Sherwani that matched the peach on my scarf. On Saturday morning, he wore a beautiful gold Sherwani with red details.
For the Jewish wedding, Raj wore a gorgeous custom-made deep blue 3-piece suit from Alan David, a Ferragamo tie (that our dad’s and my brother also wore) and New York Yankees cufflinks!
Ceremony
Raj and I wrote our own vows, which was definitely really special and my favorite part of our wedding. It felt so personal and unique to us as people and a couple. I think it also really gave our guests a look into our relationship and love for each other.
Ketubah
Our ketubah was absolutely special!! We had a custom-made ketubah by Rachel Marks who owns Tallulah Ketubahs. We really wanted our ketubah text to be written in English, Hebrew and Hindi and Rachel helped us do that.
She also incorporated so many beautiful colors and flowers that we included in our wedding. It is so gorgeous and special to us and Rachel was such a pleasure to work with!
Chuppah
In both the Indian and Jewish weddings, the wedding canopy symbolizes the home that the couple builds together. We wanted to use the same structure for our Mandap and Chuppah to symbolize that we were building one home that embraced both of our cultures/religions. Our wedding planner and florist helped us make it happen.
Our music choice
Raj and his parents walked down the aisle to Queen ‘You Are My Best Friend’ and I walked down the aisle with my parents to ‘My Girl’. Our recessional was to ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ (we wanted everyone to leave to ceremony ready to party). Our first dance was to ‘You Are The Best Thing’.
Raj danced with his mom to ‘Forever Young’ and my dad and I danced to ‘Father and Daughter’ by Paul Simon. Honestly, we completely obsessed over which songs to pick for everything and we were so happy with all of our choices at the end!
Flowers
Our florist was Designs By Ahn. Bright coral Peonies were my main request for flowers! We also had a lot of peach garden roses.
Photographer and videographer
Dave Robbins Photography was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding. The moment we met Dave, we knew his laid back and fun personality would be exactly what we needed on our wedding day. Dave exceeded our expectations in every way. Our pictures are amazing and we keep trying to think of occasions to work with Dave again!!
We also loved our videographer, Mckenzie Miller Films. They were phenomenal to work with and we loved how our videos came out!!
Food and cake
Food was very important to us! Gaurav Anand Catering did an incredible job catering our Sangeet on Friday night. Everyone was seriously blown away by how delicious all of the Indian food was. In addition to everything being delicious, Gaurav is very creative in his presentation of the food, which was so much fun.
Saturday evening was catered by Abigail Kirsch, which was also absolutely amazing. All of the food was so delicious and also beautiful to look at! Abigail Kirsch also did our cake, which was a 3 tiered white cake, with combed butter cream icing in a diagonal pattern with fresh coral peonies and greenery. It was perfect and delicious!
Entertainment
For Friday night, we used Premiere Entertainment and primarily played Indian music. Tons of our friends and family created dance performances for us too, which were so impressive and so much fun for everyone to watch! Friday night we also had a photobooth with Shutterbooth and a henna station with Henna By Tanvi. Everything was such a hit and people had so much fun!
For the Baraat on Saturday morning, Raj rode in riding a white horse from Equishare Baraat Horses and festive live music by Jina Brass Band. At our Hindu ceremony, we had live music (flute, sitar and tabla) by Eric Fraser throughout the ceremony.
During cocktail hour and our Jewish ceremony, we had a wonderful string quartet from Venus Ensembles. At our Jewish reception, we had Elan Artists Sound House Band. They were amazing and people were dancing the whole time! We keep hoping we will get to go to another wedding and see them again!!
Favors
We had luggage tags double as our place cards for Saturday night and our favor. We liked the idea of sending everyone home with something that they could use for many years to come.
Details
For Friday night, we had a custom dance floor wrap designed by ourselves, our wedding planner and executed by Shout Signage and Dance Floor Wraps. The wrap was a henna-like design with bright colors, our initials and coral elephants. It was so much fun!
One of our favorite personal touches for our wedding, was custom beer can labels! One of Raj’s close friends is a partial owner of an amazing, Philly-based brewery called Levante. We chose two of our favorite IPAs from them and they worked with us to design two different custom beer can labels! The first one was the same as our dance floor wrap and the second one was based off of our invitation design. The cans looked incredible and everyone loved the beer!
Another really unique part of our wedding, was Friday night was designed to look like a Bazaar. Raj’s parents had traveled to India earlier in the year and brought back enormous suit cases full of colorful scarves, purses, beautiful boxes, key chains, bangles, spices, pens and more! Our guests had a great time “shopping” at the bazaar shop!
We had both sets of parents give speeches, my brother and two sets of college friends who know us both very well. They definitely made us laugh a lot (and cry). We also involved our family during the ceremonies. During the Baraat, two of our nephews took turns riding on the horse with Raj (it was adorable). We also had members from Raj and my family read the 7 blessings during our Jewish ceremony.
Honeymoon
We went on the most magical month-long honeymoon. For the most part, we chose places that would be more difficult to get to in the early years of starting a family. We started in Dubai and then we went to two beautiful islands in the Seychelles.
From there we went on an amazing Safari in South Africa and then to Capetown. We ended our trip in Lake Como, Italy and Piedmont, Italy. We used Scott Dunn travel agency and could not recommend them more highly. The trip was organized perfectly and we loved every part of it!!
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
Take a minute to appreciate all of the details of your wedding. I heard from a lot of people not to obsess over the small details because you are too busy to even notice them on your wedding day. I recommend instead to just take a minute to look around, appreciate the details that you put a lot of thought into and most of all recognize all of the amazing people that came to celebrate with you!
LAURA & RAJ’S LITTLE WHITE BOOK
Photography – Dave Robbins Photography
Videography – Mckenzie Miller Films
Ketubah – Tallulah Ketubahs {offers 10% discount to all members of Smashing The Glass’s Brides Club}
Wedding planner – Erganic Design
Venues – Tappan Hill Mansion, Tarrytown House Estate
Bride’s dress – Azul by Liancarlo found and fitted at Elizabeth Johns, and Nazranaa
Bride’s shoes – Lilly Pulitzer, Ferragamo
Bride’s accessories – Elizabeth Johns, veil custom made by Nilah & Company
Groom’s attire – Alan David, Ferragamo
Hair + Makeup – Beautini
Flowers – Designs By Ahn
Jewish Ceremony Music – Venus Ensembles
Jewish Reception Band – Elan Artists Sound House Band
Sangeet Music – Premiere DJ
Baraat Music – Jina Brass Band
Indian Ceremony Music – Eric Fraser
Catering – Gaurav Anand Catering and Abigail Kirsch
Cake – Abigail Kirsch
Stationery/Invitation – Erganic Design
Rabbi – Rabbi Zach Fredman
Hindu Priest – Bharatkumar Jani
Lighting and Décor Production – Shades of Grey Production
Baraat Horse – Equishare Baraat Horses
Henna Artist – Henna By Tanvi
Photobooth – Shutterbooth
Signage and Dance Floor Wraps – Shout
Honeymoon – Scott Dunn
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