Gurpreet and Shiv Chandigarh Wedding

By Team Weddingz | Jul 20, 2020

When the Universe planned to unite two strangers, eternal love bloomed!

How They Met

They were establishing their fledgeling careers and were not looking for romance but happened to land in Sydney at about the same time. The first meeting was a chance encounter where they both entered at the same time for dinner at Shiv’s cousin’s place. The family had got together from different corners to celebrate Shiv’s grand aunt’s 90th birthday in Australia. Gurpreet and Shiv spoke briefly, and at the end of the dinner, Shiv’s cousin asked him to drop Gurpreet home. On the drive home, they engaged in light-hearted banter while discussing the law suites as Shiv has a law degree. Shiv didn’t waste time in getting Gurpreet’s phone number. However, life got in the way, and it was only after a couple of months when Shiv got back from a family trip from Hawaii that they finally caught up at an idyllic beach in Sydney. They were only supposed to have lunch together but ended up spending hours!

The In-between Story

The couple laughs at their internal joke when asked if it was love at first sight. Gurpreet mentioned, “Shiv says he could not speak much to me at the dinner party as he was love-struck – so for him, it was love at first sight.” When we asked what made her realise if he was the one, she said “ I was travelling for work for two week – this was the first time I had been away from Shiv for that long. The whole trip I missed him so much, I just missed being around him and troubling him. That’s when I knew I loved him and didn’t want to be away from him again.”

The couple took a trip to New Zealand in December 2018, which helped them realise that they both wanted to spend their lives with each other. The whole trip was magical. Gurpreet met Shiv’s cousins for the first time. Recollecting her memories, she said “ The time with Shiv’s family felt like I was already part of their family, and it was the first time we had met. The love and care his family showed me made me realise how I wanted to be a permanent part of his family.”

Gurpreet introduced Shiv to her parents via facetime since they both lived in Sydney and her parents live in India. Shiv is originally from New Zealand, and his parents live in Auckland. For the couple, it was more of Meet the Parents kind of thing. They organised a ten-day holiday to India to introduce the parents, do the roka ceremony and shop for the wedding.

So, Who Proposed?

The proposal was a surprise for Gurpreet. She was at work when Shiv sent her a ticket to New York saying they were going on a holiday. Gurpreet was super excited for the trip since she had friends there! Narrating the day of the proposal Gurpreet said “Shiv told me he was not feeling too well and asked my friends and me to head to Downtown and he would join us later. My friends took the longest route possible to get to the location and when we reached the rooftop bar. I saw Shiv standing at the end along with my sister (who flew in from Canada), my best friend (who flew in from Australia), his close friends (who flew in from New Zealand). As I started waking, live music started playing – shiv had arranged this beautiful couple to play, and the moment was just magical.”

As for the venue, Chandigarh was the obvious choice since Gurpreets parents lived there. Gurpreet was clear that they wanted to have a residential wedding which was chill and not super hectic with back to back functions. They wanted to be sure that there was some downtime for all of them to recharge.

Her Dad was playing the wedding planner and coordinating everything. They wanted a residential wedding where they could have all their functions and put up all the guests. The couple planned to have all combined ceremonies. They wanted the mehendi function to be by the pool and the main wedding in the garden. “Shiv and I both like natural beauty and wanted a venue surrounded by nature and Golden Tulip ticked all the boxes”, said Gurpreet.

It was hectic to plan everything in such a short period. Gurpreet and Shiv made a ten-day trip to India to do the wedding shopping and venue hunting. Then Gurpreet landed in India 20 days before their wedding. When we asked about how she managed to decide on everything she mentioned that she made a detailed plan for the marriage, had created word docs with references of the decor with the decorator – which helped in getting the conversations started. Though she had to leave a lot of things for the end like trials, jewellery shopping, decor and food, she had done a lot of research before coming to India, which helped. She knew exactly what she wanted and where she could get it.

Wedding Ceremonies

The wedding began with an Akhand Path followed by a small sagan ceremony on the last day of the Path at Gurpreet’s place. The main wedding festivities were spread over three days.

Sangeet

The theme for sangeet was red and gold. They wanted this function to be entertaining with lots and lots of dancing. The event flow had some dance performances, poems and games followed by lots of dancing. Both bride and groom wore Manish Malhotra on this day. Gurpreet looked very pretty in the baby pink-hued heavily embellished lehenga with red and dark red floral embroidery. To match her outfit, the designer team had customised Shiv’s attire with a black coat embroidered with a similar floral pattern. Gurpreet wore a diamond and ruby necklace from Jagdish Jewellers.

Haldi

Haldi was a morning function just after morning breakfast. It was a small cosy ceremony with close family and friends since mehndi was to follow on the same day. Haldi look was fresh and colourful. Gurpreet wore a lemon-yellow skirt and top with colourful flowers and a net cape and adorned beautiful floral jewellery from Prune. She bought this outfit from the AZA fashion exhibition in New York. Shiv complemented her well in a yellow kurta with white pyjamas which were ordered online via Aza Fashion.

Mehndi

The theme was Punjabi. Calling it one of her favourite functions, Gurpreet said, “I wanted it to be loud, full of colour and have as many Punjabi elements as possible. We organised folk singers for this function, and it was a riot of colour, fun and laughter. For this function, I wanted to look at my Punjabi best, and I wanted to wear a sharara. I wanted to wear red for one of my functions, and I chose a red sharara for this function.

I chose a Sabyasachi outfit as no one does red like Sabyasachi. I ordered the outfits via WhatsApp and made an online money transfer. I chose the outfit from their Instagram page. The shopping experience with them was great, we organised a FaceTime call to do my measurements, and the outfit fit perfectly on the first trial.”

Shiv, on the other hand, wore a coordinated outfit and wanted to try and exactly match her outfit colours for this function. Shiv wore a beautiful red Nehru jacket with red thread work with off white silk kurta by Anita Dongre.

The Wedding

For the wedding, Gurpreet wanted to wear Rose pink, an outfit which was a mix of traditional and modern work. She visited many big brand designer stores but couldn’t find the dress of her dreams. Recalling the struggle to get the perfect outfit she said “finally entered the Rimple and Harpreet Narula store where I found my wedding outfit. I liked the work on the outfit, and the designers customised to personalise the outfit to my needs. As I live in Sydney, all the discussion and planning of the outfit happening via WhatsApp and FaceTime. They sent me swatches of the outfits, and I was super happy with my final outfit.”

For Shiv, they went for contrast look to her pink outfit and decided on a pastel green sherwani with a beige stole and a pink pagdi by Sabyasachi. “The hero of his look was the kalgi which added a very royal touch to his look” she concluded.

They performed the rituals at the Gurudwara and were pronounced man and wife with the blessings of the near and dear ones. The couple was told that they would not enjoy their wedding, but on the contrary, they had a gala time and made life memories!

The Dream Team

Wedding:

Photo and Videography: @beginnings_for_you

Jewellery: @jagdishjewellerschandigarh

Bride’s outfit: @Rimpleandharpeet

Groom’s outfit: @sabyasachiofficial

Makeup: @dollyouup_bys

Hair: @arya.ruchii

Chura and Kalira: @omsons_bridal_store

Shiv’s Shoes: Sabyasachi

Brides Shoes: Steve Madden

Shiv’s Kalgi: Outhousejewellery