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My magical, meaningful, multicultural wedding

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Why should you invest in making milestones community-focused?

Everyone says weddings are the bride and groom’s “big day” (in our case, big weekend). That’s fair, obviously, since that’s the general point of a wedding in modern-day Western civilization.

We didn’t really see it that way.

Maybe it’s the fact that I come from a culture where weddings are actually NOT about the couple at all, but in fact are an accomplishment for the family (especially the parents of the bride). Maybe it’s because I’m obsessed with community. Maybe it’s because I love my partner but I also am so in love with my friends and want to celebrate them too.

For whatever combination of reasons, I knew when I first got engaged in July 2022 that our wedding would be my masterpiece in community building.

So, when planning, I decided to take a bunch of risks.

AND THE PAYOFF WAS SO. WORTH. IT.

Here are some things we heard from people:

"The most fun wedding I've ever been to" my partner's grandmother. I assume she's been to quite a few weddings ;)
"Truly in awe of the community you & the community you both have built" - a friend I've only met twice in person (second time was at the wedding!!) but we're besties pretty much
"A wedding to remember for the rest of my life. Sustainable, memorable, and insightful. To be a true part of this event was like having a part in a movie I'm watching." - one of our guests whom I've also only met twice in person but has made me a better activist, organizer, and human

Alt: a screenshot from a text that reads "your wedding was RESTORATIVE and REGENERATIVE. what if alll weddings were like that? Not an invite to a destination headache/expense. But one that activates your sense of play and community and connection that your soul is craving. And it's stupidly easy.

Alt: a screenshot that reads “A real fun adventure with a high quality celebration both unique and novel in its festivities, joy, glamor, beauty, and sheer fun. Good luck to a beautiful start of a life long journey nivis and Ben… A thousand prayers follow you both”

Here’s why planning a community-focused wedding was so important to us:

When you ask someone to commit time, money, and energy (in our case, a whole weekend!) to an event that celebrates you, you have the unique chance to make it one of the best weekends of THEIR lives. And that’s what we wanted. And guess what? It worked!

So many of our friends and family came up to Ben and me saying that this was not only the best wedding they’ve attended, but also one of the best weekends of their lives. One of our friends even said she left our wedding as a better person than when she arrived — whaaat?!?! 🤯🤯

I’m so honored to be able to shape this experience for them. I’m also a little sad, because the way we’ve implemented capitalism has stripped our lives of community. Isolation is the default infrastructure, as Dr. Ayesha Khan says. Here’s an excerpt from their Woke Scientist Substack:

Why is it so hard for people to build community? I think one reason is that capitalist infrastructure is designed for alienation and isolation. Another reason is the lack of culture and regenerative collectivist traditions for people to root into. So people are often born into, raised in, surrounded by a dominant societal structure that devalues, deprioritizes, demeans, dismisses and distracts from genuine community. This means we have to be very intentional and purposeful about forging meaningful relationships and pay attention to the details… the specifics of what we need to do to find, cultivate and sustain these bonds.

Our wedding was my chance to contribute, in my small way, to pro-social rituals and collectivist traditions.

If every single one of us just takes a few minutes each day to think about how we can dismantle isolationist infrastructure and rebuild, in its place, beautiful, vibrant, restorative, regenerative connections, the world will very obviously be a better place.

Who knew that a few extra brain cells dedicated to wedding planning could lead to a whole systems change journey?

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How do you even build community at a finite event?

Unlike geographical communities, online interest groups, or in-depth retreats, temporary events like weddings and birthday parties aren’t as conducive to lifelong friendships and unforgettable connections.

Our wedding, on the other hand, has led to:

My uncle deciding that my aunt’s tenant is now as good as his brother. They’ve planned to meet up next month on the East Coast
One of my friends who lives in Las Vegas partnering with our storyteller who is East Coast-based to do an IG live together and make business dreams come true
Me meeting new cousins and finding a much deeper sense of family in the family I already have
And muuuuuuuuchhhh more

Only time will tell how much of this lasts, but I think this is as good as it can get from a 3-day event.

The Art of Gathering readers already know this, but a first, non-negotiable step was to create a purpose statement. We got REALLY clear on why we’re doing this and what we want out of the experience of gathering our friends and family.

During our initial brainstorm, Ben and I came up with a few factors that would make our wedding fun. We also learned a bunch of lessons from other friends’ weddings, and this was our summary of our priorities:

Good cultural balance
Good food good drinks good laughs
Everyone to have at least 1 new friend from our wedding
Show up & be engaged - no empty waiting

Then, after some more thinking, we turned it into a wedding purpose statement:

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We want to throw a party where our guests are engaged and entertained. They will remember our wedding as a time when they met a new friend, ate good food, and had fun and unique activities.

This statement lives at the very top of our massive wedding planning Notion doc (that you can get access to! keep reading), so each time we met for our weekly wedding planning sessions together, we were grounded in why the heck we’re putting all this effort in.

The “met a new friend” was the crux of having a community-focused event. We dedicated an entire day to it—Friday was our mehndi mela (which would be the same vibes as a welcome event), Saturday was our Telugu wedding, and Sunday was the Christian ceremony.

Friday’s entire purpose was to facilitate new friendships, and it set the tone for the whole weekend.

Having a dedicated container for community building (via Friday’s event) was how we laid the foundation for something more summer camp/retreat feeling. Plus, we offered all our guests to stay in 1) the same hotel OR 2) one of two “Hype Houses” — giant AirBnBs to hang out with friends. I’d guess the Hype House residents were able to soak in the community vibes the most.

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Okay so what were the actual steps taken?

Pre-wedding

Forming a purpose statement and committing to it
Deciding that Friday’s Mehndi Mela would be a pizza party, since that sets the tone for a casual, conversational event
Creating 10 activity stations for Friday so people have a reason to mingle
Designing a weekend long game, Vow Vendetta (more on this soon)
Reaching out to people and asking them if they want to participate in dances. This is the IKEA effect at work 😉

Decision #1 — HYPE HOUSES!

I went into this already above, but I have to re-mention it. At the end of every night, in our wedding party hype house, we debriefed the events of the day: what was wack, what was great, and unique memories each person had.

Also, our friends’ hype house (the other one that we weren’t staying in, which consisted of people who already knew each other well and folks who were meeting for the first time) was unbelievably lit—on Sunday night, after everything was done, we had an afterparty there.

Damon playing golf at our hype house, because why not

Decision #2 — Exclusive invites to 150 people

This was a controversial one. First of all, we only invited 150 people, which is VERY SMALL for an Indian wedding. I decided to do this based on Dunbar’s number. My family was big mad.

The second part of this was that we asked people to RSVP only if they could attend all three events. We were VERY intentional with our guest list. My thought was that if you have something better to do that weekend than to spend it with us, you absolutely should! And if you’re coming, you can come and be fully present with us.

Although we said we weren’t making exceptions to this, if people reached out really wanting to come, and not being able to make one of the days, we agreed — it wasn’t as cutthroat as it sounded on the invites 😂

Friday — Mehndi Mela

The theme of our wedding was Achanted Adbenture (my last name is Achanta and Ben’s name is Ben). Since it’s a multicultural wedding, we decided that Day 1 should be all about Customs!

Decision #3 — Activity stations & raffle

So we welcomed people to Customs and invited them to assemble their passports. We ordered a bunch of tiny notebooks for our guests, made two welcome stations where people could add Saturday and Sunday’s programs, the instructions for Vow Vendetta, and a QR code to upload photos throughout the weekend (suuuuuuuuch a good call). My favorite part was that upon greeting them, we took a “passport photo” — lil Polaroid pictures of them with the couple!

For about an hour, we let people cycle through 9 different activity stations. Here are the first three!

Date Jenga — a giant tumble tower game where the loser writes a date for the couple. I love this photo below so much because all the people in the background are from different parts of our lives.

Ben and me and our guests laughing our hearts out at an absurdly long (and high) game of giant Jenga

Rangoli — my grandmas guided guests through some classic Indian art. IT WAS SO WHOLESOME
Canvas Creations — an introvert-friendly painting activity for those who need a break or want to do something creative

How to play Canvas Creations sign

We originally had 10 activities, but things go wrong alas, but no one has to know. 🤫

After you complete a station, you got to put a raffle ticket in the jar, and we got some really fun adventure-themed prizes from local businesses, including a portable fire pit!

Decision #4 — Vow Vendetta, a weekend-long game

Either I made this game up myself, or I’m accidentally stealing credit, but this was SOOO much fun to watch unfold.

Vow Vendetta is an assassins-style game where everyone has a target to eliminate. Once you eliminate your target and cause them to “vow out”, you move on to their target, and so on. And we got prizes for the winners at the end of the weekend!

Vow Vendetta game instructions, which will be included on request for my course (below)

This game set the context that talking to other guests was highly encouraged. You never know if someone’s just making small talk or if they’re out to get you, and it was hilarious hearing people’s Vow Victory stories throughout the weekend.

Talking to people you don’t know can feel forced and awkward, but having this conversation-based weekend long game kept the words and good vibes flowing.

Decision #5 — Human Tenzie

Another game I made up! We had three 10-minute rounds where your first assignment was to find a free table based on your wristband color. (Wristbands were given along with passports, and we assigned them randomly.) People had a few minutes to find a table that matched the “map” (example below), and then Ben and I announced a question for them to discuss.

The first question, that turned into an inside joke of the weekend, was: Are you a Ben or a Nivi? Explain.

An index card with some scribbly notes on why people are a Nivi or a Ben

I wanted to cry of happiness watching almost all 150 people play the game, mingle with new people, and have a good time.

We also had a couple speeches, played the shoe game, ate pizza and ice cream and popsicles, and finally held our raffle for the three station winners, and that was that!

I do think pizza really set the tone for the lighthearted event. Food matters!

Saturday — Telugu Ceremony

THE ABSOLUTE BEST decision we made on Saturday was to partner a wedding storyteller. 10000000000000000000% couldn’t recommend this more. Hire Neelam and don’t look back.

Decision #6 — Wedding Storyteller

So a Wedding Storyteller isn’t really a thing, as far as I know. Yes, there are officiants and MCs and translators and narrators, but this was new.

Our Hindu ceremony was 90 minutes, and that’s considered short. If you’ve been to a Hindu wedding, you likely sat through an hour+ of the priest doing some chants. Perhaps he translated some of it but you didn’t know what was going on. Perhaps everyone around you was talking during the ceremony and you weren’t sure why that’s considered acceptable. Perhaps it was cool… but confusing.

Neelam Patel partnered with our priest (who was excellent! But his job is being a priest, not a storyteller) to explain the various steps of our wedding to our audience. That wasn’t it, though — she invited our guests to actively participate, whether by imagining a clear sky ahead of us during the Ganesh Pooja (the ritual to praise the god in charge of removing obstacles), or by asking the audience to send thoughts and wishes of abundance our way as I entered the stage in my little basket.

She broke down the rituals, gave each one the appropriate English name, explained the symbolism, and tied it all together with an ask of our community.

Neelam Patel, Wedding Storyteller, performing on the right of the stage

That last part — asking the community to participate — I’d never seen before.

Instead of a wedding ceremony, it felt like a magical journey with a magical guide. I’ve NEVER heard of people getting emotional at a Hindu ceremony, but by the end of ours, people were fully in tears.

Before I partnered with Neelam, I was extremely unenthused about the Telugu ceremony.

Because of her, I’d do it all again, and I actually feel inspired to learn more about my religion and culture. You can check out her website, Tailored Poetry, but I’d also be happy to make an intro whether you’re planning a wedding, cultural festival, or any other major event.

Ben and me celebrating the ritual of happiness (Talambralu). He is pouring dry rice on my head and I am cackling.

Decision #7 — a curated and thoughtful Sangeet

We described our Sangeet as a Bollywood Night-style reception. I’m from South India and the Sangeet is traditionally a North Indian pre-wedding ritual, but it’s fun as heck so I wanted to do it.

Another way I’ve heard Sangeets described are as friends and family talent shows. For that reason, they can be awesome… but a little draggy.

To offset that, we had stories woven throughout our Sangeet, starting with the family skit (that was a surprise to me, and I got serenaded) and ending with the dance Ben and I choreographed.

Our Sangeet was really special because it was yet another way to invite people to participate in the festivities. I knew that we wouldn’t get to talk in depth with everyone at our wedding, but remember, the goal was that everyone makes at least one new friend. So we asked people if they wanted to be in dances grouped by common interests and identities — like our Entrepreneurial Women dance.

We ended our Sangeet with telling the story of how Ben and I met. It got everyone hyped, and we immediately transitioned into open dance floor with “I Gotta Feeling” — and you know everyone knows that song.

So many people came up to us saying this is the ONLY time in their lives they’ve danced at a wedding, and we could see the joy on their faces — a little bit of courage goes a long way. We’re so grateful people said YES!!

To end my Saturday decision recap, here’s a chaotic pic of me dancing with my mom and two grandmas.

chaotic pic of me dancing with my mom and two grandmas

Sunday — Christian Wedding

I’d say this was the most “traditional” of all our celebrations—you may have seen some of these decisions at previous events you’ve been to.

Decision #8 — filler games

Lawn games are nothing new. But instead of shelling out a bunch of money on custom cornhole or whatever, we just had an assortment of games, including the giant Jenga from Friday! We really didn’t like the idea of people standing around just waiting for the ceremony to start, so we had a lil games happy hour.

While people were off playing games, my partner and I read private vows to one another. We created a separate set of public vows that were more light-hearted, because why not?!

Decision #9 — mindful moment

Before we arrived at the altar, we had our officiant ask everyone to put their phones away, but guarantee a photo moment so everyone could have social media pics to their heart’s content.

As soon as we arrived at the altar, we had our officiant call for a 20-second mindful moment.

Sydney Westra, or @squidwestra on Instagram, shared a script that her officiant used and we borrowed it for our mindful moment and our group vow (more below).

There’s a lot of planning and running around that goes into a wedding and with all that hassle it can be easy to forget where you are. Here at a wedding! So let’s all take in this moment. Please stand with me now, take a RELAXED breath and be still for the next 20 seconds as we all take in the fact that we are here, surrounded by people we love, to celebrate these two amazing individuals.

Our officiant tweaked it to remind us to cherish the nature that surrounded us and truly take it in, and it really helped us all be present for the rest of the ceremony.

Also, after all the hard work of booking this beautiful venue, it was so special to take it in, and to look back at my bridal squad—my favorite people in the world—and really be grateful for all of it.

Nivi (me) looking at our pastor Miguel, with Noopur, Ruhi, Lana, Nikita, Chloe, and Sophie — the best bridesmaids in the world — behind her

Afterwards, so many people came up to us and shared how much they loved this moment, and how connected it made them feel to the ceremony and to our marriage.

Decision #10 — group vow

Finally, we wanted to seal this whole weekend with a group vow, also borrowed from Sydney Westra. The only thing we changed was our names—this was already so perfect. We did this right after our vows to each other, so everyone was already super emotional 😈

Two people in love do not live in isolation. Their love is a source of strength with which they may nourish not only each other but also the world around them. And in turn, WE, their community of friends and family, have a responsibility to this couple. By our steadfast care, respect, and love, we can support their marriage and the new family they are creating today.
Will everyone please rise. Will you who are present here today, surround Ben and Nivi in love, offer them the joys of your friendship, and support them in their marriage?

Once everyone was sufficiently bawling, we finished up the ceremony, exited with our wedding party, and signed our marriage license as our friends and family enjoyed the taco bar.

Then, it was time for the reception!

Decision #11 — karaoke instead of a traditional reception

We’d already danced the night away on Saturday, so we wanted to do something different. My hope was to have our friends who are in a band play for us, but the logistics didn’t work out (still a little sad on that honestly).

So we had karaoke!!

Karaoke was such a special touch. Not only is it my favorite activity, and one that I do pretty much every weekend with my Seattle friends, it’s also such a great positive peer pressure moment.

It’s so fun to invite people up on stage as you’re talking with them, and ask them (force them?) to grab a mic and join you to sing.

The combos were unbelievable. The satellite hype house did a song together, and it warmed my heart to see that they were all pretty much besties after this weekend together. My uncle and my friend sang a duet, although I’m pretty sure they hadn’t even talked on the previous days. And of course, I got to bop in and out of all the songs I felt like singing.

It was also such a fun, silly way to end the night!

Photo on the left: Ben & Nivi doing karaoke. Photo on the right: Meghan & Nivi doing karaoke

That’s a wrap on all the things I can think of for now that made our wedding THE BEST IN THE WORLD.

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Resources for your magical and meaningful next event

I believe in you and your ability to create your own magical, meaningful event. Here are some things I mentioned above that will support you, plus something SUPER EXCITING I’ve been working on!

From others

From me

I’M LAUNCHING A COURSE! If you found this article helpful and/or you want to dive deeper, I’d love your support. It’s a choose-what-you-pay thing, because I’m not making a career as a wedding planner, but it would be super duper awesome to be recognized for the free resources I keep putting out in the world. I would truly love it if you supported my work.

The course on hosting a magical, meaningful, multicultural wedding is split into four modules:

Context-setting — the WHY and WHERE
Planning — the WHO and WHAT
Executing — the HOW and WHEN
Preparing for everything going wrong and having a meltdown — the BOO and CRY

Each module comes with ~4 videos and includes a project management section. I also provide my MASSIVE planning doc which includes email templates and more resources to set you up for success!

The sign-up link will be sent out on my email list, so make sure you’re on it if you’re interested in learning more.

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The 3 pics included here are screenshots of my behemoth wedding planning doc, templated for you. They showcase the wedding purpose statement, a list of planning docs, and a display of the tasks status tracker.

Planning docs screenshot

Wedding tasks status tracker screenshot with Not Started, In Progress, and Completed—you have a list of over 70 tasks in “not started” that are ready for you!

Finally, course or no course, you can book an experience consultation with me. Click the lil button 🆙🔝 to grab a free session to chit chat about your event, and then we’ll see if it’s a good fit to work together. These consults are for weddings, special events, corporate retreats, conferences, and more!