Shah Grunwald Emily Takes Photos RDwed0226 low alternative wedding ideas from Offbeat Wed (formerly Offbeat Bride)

When Emily of Emily Takes Photos sent us this San Francisco wedding, I was gobsmacked first by its amazingness and second by its enormity! There is so much to absorb here. Based on their heritage, Ruchira and Dave dubbed this their “HinJew” wedding!

Lowe House Creative had the honor of day-of coordination for the Baraat and the wedding. The three-day celebration included a mehndi party and Sangeet the night before, a Baraat/Welcome Ceremony, the wedding ceremony itself, and a hora at the reception.

The Sangeet, which they celebrated the night before the ceremony:

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The Baraat/Welcome Ceremony:

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The wedding ceremony, reception, and hora:

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To see the rest of the story on each of the parts of this fantastic wedding, check out Emily's blog posts on the ceremony, the Sangeet, and the mehndi party.

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Comments on An opulent multi-day HinJew wedding

  1. Oh my god, this is such a beautiful wedding!! I love everything about it. I love when weddings combine two cultures. 😀

  2. This was *such* an amazing wedding to get to be a part of! But just to clarify, Ruchi and Dave did all the planning, I just stepped in to day-of-coordinate the Baraat and the Wedding.

    Looking at all of Emily’s amazing photos again is such a great reminder of how totally rad both the wedding was and Ruchi & Dave are!

  3. Holy crap! This is amazing! The colors! The mendhi! The canopy! I love it!! Every single little piece of it!!!

    Look how many exclamation points you made me use. That’s how totally badass your wedding is.

  4. It’s an amazing wedding. I makes me so happy to see two cultures and religions coming together despite differences. Everyone looks like they’re having the time of their life!

  5. It definitely takes an amazing couple to have such an amazing wedding…it’s great to see some different cultures repesented! 🙂

  6. Thank you all for the sweet comments about our wedding which Emily so gorgeously captured!

    Just to clarify a few details, because I know that as an interfaith couple it can be hard to find examples of other interfaith weddings on the web, we only had one canopy which is the one pictured, but it is traditional to both the Jewish and Hindu weddings- called a chuppah in Jewish weddings and a mandap in Hindu weddings.

    Our canopy is actually the family chuppah of a close friend of Dave and mine who set us up. Her mother made the chuppah and she and her brothers were married under it and they generously let us use it for our wedding as well. Because marigolds are auspicious in Hindu weddings and are traditionally used to decorate the mandap, we strung marigolds around the poles of the chuppah to bring in elements of the mandap and the chuppah into one structure.

    Also, the ceremony was performed by Dave’s family rabbi, but we had a close family friend of mine perform the Saptapadi, which is a very important part of the Hindu wedding. And it wasn’t just Dave who worked with his rabbi — we actually both worked extensively with the rabbi, not only to incorporate Jewish elements into the ceremony, but to weave our two cultures together into the ceremony. It took a lot of talking about what our cultures and identities meant to us, but in the end, I think I feel culturally Jewish and Dave feels culturally Indian in a way that we wouldn’t had we not both done the hard work.

    Thanks again for featuring our wedding and for all the sweet comments!

    • Thank you for that clarification! Another question: is the beautiful photo of the blue paper your ketubah (sorry if my spelling is off!!!)? I think it is really gorgeous and just would like to know where you had it created?

    • From one HinJew bride to another, Congrats Ruchi on a beautiful wedding integrating both of your cultures and religions. I personally know that it takes a lot of work when you don’t follow the traditions, or a script, but I think you have found that all the hard work was worth it.

      We did pretty much the same things for our wedding. When we started doing research on both Hindu/desi and Jewish traditions, we realized there were many similarities.

      Question, now that you are married, how do you guys handle all the holidays?

  7. YES! How beautiful and friggin heart-warming! I’m currently planning a wedding that represents a combination of my partner and my Jewish and Caribbean (respectively) cultures and this is inspiring.

  8. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My partner and I are in the process of planning a Hindu wedding. You are a beautiful couple, and your love radiates! Sending you light and happiness in the years to come.

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