An opulent multi-day HinJew wedding #Real Weddings: Western US#california#chuppah#henna#India#interfaith#jewish#san francisco#sari Updated Oct 12 2015 (Posted Mar 28 2012) Catherine Clark bijouxandbits 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: Some of the results from the mehndi party on display. The Sangeet was the pre-party where Ruchi and Dave's loved ones put on an amazing show, with everything from singing, dancing, poems, speeches, and skits depicting moments in their life together. The show closed with the 'Aunties and Uncles Dance,' in which they danced to a medley of popular Indian songs. The Baraat/Welcome Ceremony: The Baraat is the procession of the groom and his family and friends to the wedding. The groom rode a horse! Some of the men from Ruchi's side taught the men from Dave's family some dance moves. Ruchi's mother showered Dave with rice and flower petals to officially welcome him to her family while her other family members exchanged floral garlands with Dave's family members. The wedding ceremony, reception, and hora: Dave worked with his rabbi to incorporate his Jewish faith into the combined ceremony. There were two canopies: a Jewish Chuppah and a Hindu Mandap. Ruchi's uncles wore yarmulkes, and Dave's family wore saris and kurtas to further combine their beliefs. Their ceremony overlapped in the meaning of the number seven: Saptapadi are the Hindu seven steps around the holy fire, and Sheva B'rachot are the Jewish seven blessings. A great look at the Galleria at the San Francisco Design Center. The food was provided by Global Gourmet Catering. The Hora had about 200 people in it, and the parents were hoisted too! 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. Reporter Name * Reporter Email * Original text Enter the original text here. Edited text* Enter your suggested copyedit here. Notes You can add a note for the editor here. * Required information. Fix Typo Catherine Clark Catherine Clark loiters at her local library, makes art, watches movies en masse, plays video and tabletop games, poorly cooks healthy things, cuddles with her feline fur babies, and blogs at BijouxandBits.com. @enidjcoleslaw @bijouxandbits @bijouxandbits PREVIOUS On wedding photography minimalism NEXT Sara & Rob's piñatas and flip-flops island wedding Show/Hide comments [ 17 ] HOLY CHEESE AND RICE! This looks amazing. What a gorgeous melding of cultures! Reply Oh my god, this is such a beautiful wedding!! I love everything about it. I love when weddings combine two cultures. 😀 Reply 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! Reply Updated the post to reflect this. Thanks for the fix, Elizabeth! Reply Whoaa that is awesome! I love all of the energy in the photos! Beautiful! Reply 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. Reply I got nothing but "HOLY SHIT THAT'S FUGGING GORGEOUS!" Reply 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! Reply It definitely takes an amazing couple to have such an amazing wedding…it's great to see some different cultures repesented! 🙂 Reply 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! Reply 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? Reply That is our ketubah, created by Ketubah Kraft: http://www.ketubahkraft.com/ who I found actually through Offbeat Bride! Reply I absolutely LOVE how your ketubah has both Hebrew and Hindi. Its so gorgeous and meaningful. Seriously . . . tears. Reply 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? Reply I have never been so moved by wedding photos before. So sweet!!! Reply 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. Reply 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. Reply Leave a Reply to Miranda Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sign me up for your offbeat awesomeness newsletter! No-drama comment policy Part of what makes the Offbeat Empire different is our commitment to civil, constructive commenting. Make sure you're familiar with our no-drama comment policy. Biz owners & wedding bloggers Please just use your real name in your comment, not your business name or blog title. Our comments are not the place to pimp your website. If you want to promote your stuff on Offbeat Bride, join us as an advertiser instead.
Oh my god, this is such a beautiful wedding!! I love everything about it. I love when weddings combine two cultures. 😀 Reply
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! Reply
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. Reply
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! Reply
It definitely takes an amazing couple to have such an amazing wedding…it's great to see some different cultures repesented! 🙂 Reply
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! Reply
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? Reply
That is our ketubah, created by Ketubah Kraft: http://www.ketubahkraft.com/ who I found actually through Offbeat Bride! Reply
I absolutely LOVE how your ketubah has both Hebrew and Hindi. Its so gorgeous and meaningful. Seriously . . . tears. Reply
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? Reply
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. Reply
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. Reply