Planning an Indowestern Wedding

I am American and my husband is Indian and we got married in India in 2024! The biggest advice I can give about wedding planning is set boundaries and communicate! That being said, everyone’s experience and preferences will be different, so always do what’s right for you.

We actually had TWO full weddings, one Indian and one American.This blog is about our Indian wedding and what we did to make it feel like us (an Indian/American couple) and to welcome our foreign guests.

1. Decide how you want to blend cultures

This was a big one for us. We really wanted to embrace all the beautiful traditions of Indian weddings, but we didn’t want to leave out the American wedding culture. That’s why we ended up deciding to do two full weddings, one for each culture. We knew if we blended them, we’d feel like we would be missing out on something.

2. Align on your non-negotiables

3. Don’t let others tell you what you want

Weddings are such an insane business and there are so many advertisements, influencers, and everyone else trying to tell you what you should want. For example, I had people telling me I should buy a Sabyasachi bridal lehenga because it’s every bride’s dream and I could afford it. For a while, I almost thought that should be what I wanted. Then I realized that before starting to plan a wedding, I didn’t even know what Sabyasachi was, so why would I care now? There were so many examples of this where I had to stay true to myself while trying to assimilate to Indian culture.

4. Hire a planner

I think this is pretty common in India now, and especially in destination weddings, but having a wedding planner helps SO MUCH. This let us as the couple and our families actually enjoy the wedding, instead of running around trying to handle all the logistics. If you are able, having a planner is the best. We hired HappyTrio Weddings and it was the BEST decision. The owner, Garima, is a literal angel and made everything so perfect for our big day!

5. Strike a balance between tradition and personalization

This was one of my favorite parts of wedding planning – finding a way to adapt traditions and rituals so that they fit our personal values. For example, we worked with our panditji to edit the wedding ceremony to be more equal and include personalized vows. We switched out the Kanyadaan (transferring bride from her family to the grooms family)  for a more equal Vivahadanam (a joining of families). We also decided when the Mangalsutra was placed on me (the bride), I would place the ring on the groom, so that it was an equal exchange. 

6. Cherish the people who are there for you

Planning and celebrating a wedding really told us a lot about people. We were so grateful for all the support of our family and friends, and so many people were going above and beyond for us. For the people who had complaints or weren’t genuinely happy for us, we had to learn to just let it go and enjoy with the people who were. There’s always going to be some drama, but it usually says a lot more about the person causing the drama than it does about you.

7. Negotiate everything

This can be so exhausting but you have to negotiate everything. Almost everything we booked, we negotiated at least 30% off the initial price. You can also negotiate things like check in time, alcohol policy, included services, and more. Check out my downloadable wedding planner for all my negotiation techniques, detail tracker, and more!

Be sure you also do this with your outfits. I can’t even explain the number of times the tailors told me my outfits looked good but I wasn’t happy with them. I had to advocate for myself and not let anyone gaslight me with ‘that’s how it is supposed to look.’

8. Set a budget and stick to it

You can spend infinite amount of money on a wedding, so having a budget is so important. Make sure you work with your venue and your planner to stick to that budget, so you don’t add a bunch of stuff and are later shocked by the bill. I always joke that it’s so crazy that the first thing you do as a serious couple is plan a crazy expensive event that brings out all the quirks of your families and puts massive stress on your relationship. If you can get through it together, you can get through anything!

9. Chose the events that you’re excited about

There are so many types of events you could include in an Indian wedding, and you don’t have to do all of them. We have friends that aren’t into dancing and they skipped the sangeet. We decided to skip the engagement night since we had gotten engaged in the American tradition ahead of time. We also added a welcome dinner with our immediate family so they had time to get to know each other.

10. Let things go

With the amount of things that go on during an Indian wedding, at least one thing is bound to go wrong, more likely, many things will go wrong. In the grand scheme of things, you’ll realize it’s probably not that important and the most important thing is enjoying your big day with your friends and family!