NIKA & ASHESH
Wedding at Santo Winery
Indian weddings are always very special for me and I’m more than grateful that I had the chance to shoot nine Indian weddings so far including two in India. The work of a wedding photographer shooting an Indian wedding in Greece is certainly a challenging task, which apart from technical skills requires a certain acquaintance with Indian wedding customs and conventions. These customs have a strong spiritual foundation, while they are filled with colors, music, dance, food, and fun for everyone. And this is what actually makes a destination Indian wedding in Greece so interesting for me.
Ashesh and Nika met through friends 4 years after college. Although they had attended Rutgers University the same time, they didn’t remember even seeing one another. After their first meeting time flew by and three and a half years later Ashesh proposed to Nika in Disney World in Florida in Cinderella’s castle during a surprise dinner as true to a fairy tale as it can be. On the flight back from Florida to New York, they decided they wanted to do a destination wedding to keep the gathering as intimate can be for an Indian wedding. Both of them love summer and water and an Indian wedding in Greece seemed an excellent idea, so once they threw out Santorini as an option, no other location seemed to compare.
The festivities started one day before the wedding with the Sangeet ceremony in Cavo Ventus. The Sangeet is a pre-wedding celebration filled with singing and dancing. The wedding day started very early with the ceremony taking place also at Cavo Ventus. The Indian wedding ceremony is a whole love story, which starts with the first meeting between the bride and the groom and their decision to get married. Then the bride’s parents give away the bride and the couple commits to marriage under the wedding Mandap in front of the sacred fire of Agni, the Fire God. The colorful decoration was taken care of by the experienced Wedding Wish team. The spectacular two-day celebration ended at Theros Wave Bar where the couple arrived in a helicopter and partied till late.
