Wedding
Planner (to the bride’s mother) – Ma’am, what was your favourite moment of the
wedding?
Customer – My daughter prefers to keep her emotions to herself and is not very expressive yet on the day of the cocktails she walked up to me, hugged me and whispered in my ears – ‘Thank you for everything, the place is looking heavenly, everything is so perfect.”
As a wedding planner listening to compliments like these is always a treat and it feels even more accomplishing when the ‘mother’ of the bride had been involved in the overall planning, going to great lengths to ensure that whole event turns out to be a fairy tale wedding for her daughter.
As
wedding planners we always come across a variety of customers, a few of them
have a broad idea of what they want and look for our advice for venue, colour
palette, aesthetics, cuisines etc. and then there are a few customers who just
walk in knowing exactly what they want – right from the hues of décor to
ingredients of cuisines on the offer, yet leave ‘us’ with the option of using
our experience to ensure best results on ground. Wedding of Sanjana
& Nishit provided us with the opportunity of meeting one such
customer – Mrs. Sharmila Karve, the bride’s mother.
It all started with a phone call (which we later got to know was) on recommendation of a revered common acquaintance. The first call gave us a fair idea of the expectations of the customer, we were asked to share a few references, testimonials, videos and photographs of previous events and a lot more.
A few references and phone calls later the first meeting happened in the month of September 2019 and it was also the culmination of our confidence building endeavors. The meeting went of well and we were provided with a broad outline of the cocktail event. At a later stage we were also entrusted with the task of photography, transport solutions, catering services at home and management of the Bar.
We had to envisage what Mrs. Karve wanted, ideate around it, innovate if required and then present the results to her, a few yeses and no’s later and just a few days before the event we were ready with our plan and keeping 5 % for ‘Mr. Murphy’, the final preparations were started.
Mr. Murphy struck a few times but then that’s a story to be told in some other blog at some other time. As the day came closer, anxiety made it’s way through; yet Mrs. Karve veiled it with a very calm demeanor. During the buildup days to marriage, her habit of thinking aloud while going through a plan was a sight to behold, and I will be very honest it added a lot of fun and zest, even though at times it was difficult to know exactly which part of her speech is to be paid attention to, as it may just be part of her thought. As big a sport she is, I could joke with her to let me know when to pay attention.
The décor at home was kept minimalistic and elegant. In view of the Haldi ceremony colour theme was ‘shades of yellow’. To give a subtle touch to the décor, rough woven material was used to provide overhead cover. A 150 ft X 2 ft rangoli was made all along the pathway using marigold and the whole house was lit up using rice lights. Menu over the four meals was traditional Punjabi, Awadhi and Maharashtrian. The idea was to slowly set up the tempo for the event and make each sub-event unique and enjoyable and not over-do the events preceding wedding functions.
The venue for cocktail was between two greens of a golf course. The décor had to be in sync with the already beautiful surroundings, it had to have a feel of being expansive yet cozy and comfortable. The event was in the evening hence the most important factor was the use of light and it had to be meticulously planned. Floral arrangement had to be done using Carnations and Bougainvillea, former was choice of Mrs. Karve and the latter was favourite flower of the bride. Bougainvillea is a difficult flower to be used yet the team came up with the idea of using it at the bar counter that had a glass front. Colour theme for the day was purple and white. Menu for the event was decided to be a fusion of Awadhi and Kashmiri cuisines. For the DJ, customer wanted English retro music.
Dance floor was 2000 sq ft with a 50 ft. fairy light backdrop. It was an inward-lit dance floor to ensure that the ambient lighting is not affected by the light of dance floor.
With these as a few basic guidelines; the team at Passiflora sat down to brainstorm on the décor. The most difficult part was planning the ambient lighting to cover the huge venue without it being too bright or too dull/dark. The pathway was approx. 200 ft and area of approx. 5000 sq ft had to be decorated. The ground at the venue was divided into two distinct landscapes – one a flat surface and the other a gradual slope terminating at an amphitheater.
A glimpse of the venue from the southern end, near the dance floor. The area beyond the lights in the center was the food layout area.
WeDoites came to the conclusion that the only way forward is to work on the decoration in a manner that it touches all the senses of guests. The first step was to just enhance the ambient beauty of the venue by converting it into a fairyland. With that as a start point; a fairy light canopy was erected along the pathway for 200 ft, on the sides of this canopy were hung carnation and Jasmine garlands and on the top under the lights, bouquets of chrysanthemums were hung upside down. Along the ground, small glass bottles with Pink rice lights and butter paper bags with candles were put for the entire length of the pathway. At the entrance for about 20 ft a light curtain was created. At regular intervals scented candles and diffusers were placed to touch the ‘sense of smell’.
Lighting at the venue comprised of Chinese lamps, rice lights, LEDs and the seating comprised of chivas chairs, banquet chairs, low seating sofas, traditional seating of ‘takhat’ etc. At the end of the pathway and the opening of the venue two huge flower arrangements were done on rock benches with candles lit all around it. And this was also decided as the ‘Wow- Capture’ zone by the team as the whole expanse of venue could be seen from that spot hence any guest reaching that point would have the expressions that would tell the tale.
As the first batch of guests arrived and the shutters started clicking with venue as the subject and not the guests themselves Passiflorites knew that ‘Fairyland’ has been achieved. The guests were engrossed in the moment and reached a different realm and guest after guest the pattern was repeated – the ‘Happiness quotient’ was high and achieved.
At this point in time I looked at Mrs. Karve and a slight nod from her meant that everything is perfect and the next moment was Sanjana whispering something to her (which I now know was) – “Thank you for everything, the place is looking heavenly, everything is so perfect.”
