The RohLani Signature
Here are some ways we put our own personal touch on our Big Fat South Asian wedding | September 4, 2023 | 6 minute read
We designed & ordered a custom neon sign from Ali Express!
From the get go, Rohan & I decided that we wanted to prioritize a few key things throughout our wedding events, no matter how big or complex they were:
All events should proceed on time, as indicated in invitations & programmes, and guests should not be kept waiting for things to begin.
We spent a lot of time building detailed and realistic itineraries and relied heavily on our coordinator Saamah of S Jay Events to keep things on track, which she did amazingly!
All guests should be constantly fed! We wanted to make sure no one was hungrily waiting for a long ceremony or speech or performance to start/finish but were instead enjoying the proceedings with a satisfied stomach!
We communicated specific timings for food to be served (appetizers, main meals) with our venues so that guests were tended to properly!
We also made sure food was ready upon arrival at all hall events for our guests
Our guests should be given the opportunity to dance, mingle & enjoy themselves as soon as possible at each event, instead of sitting through long ceremonies/speeches/performances!
In particular we wanted our guests to be on the dancefloor & enjoy the reception earlier than at most other weddings we had attended - so we made a point to stick to a minimal number of speeches, and decided we would rather dance with our guests, and make full use of our DJ, instead of hire / arrange for any performances at our reception.
We kept all family performances to our Sangeet alone, and we think this made for a more memorable and intimate Sangeet as well as a more epic reception complete with many memorable moments on the dancefloor with our guests!
And finally - Rohan & I wanted to make sure our unique touch was added to all events - and that we put our own spin on certain traditions!
So here are the fun ways we added “The RohLani Signature” to some classic traditions:
1. “Opening Night” Film Premiere Theme for our Sangeet
One of Rohan & my number 1 shared interests would be our love for movies; we even did a portion of our engagement shoot at a Cineplex theatre, (with support from the awesome management at Scotiabank Theatre)! So somewhere during the wedding planning process I took one of our favorite pictures at the cinema and turned it into a our own movie poster! Soon after that Rohan & I decided to run with a movie premiere theme for our Sangeet, which marked the start of our wedding celebrations.
To help tie the theme together, we displayed our movie poster in the lobby, and we decided we wanted to welcome our guests with popcorn (one of our favorite snacks!). I turned to some of my colleagues at work to order Cineplex popcorn which my aunts picked up on the day of our sangeet, and graciously portioned out into some beautiful popcorn cups I found at Dollarama, and customized with our monogram sticker! The results were super fancy looking on a reasonable budget!
2. Customized Signage
Although it’s common for children in the bridal party to carry cute signs like “Here comes the bride” nowadays in weddings, and you can find these types of signs on Etsy or at places like Michaels or Indigo - I decided I wanted my security detail - aka my little nephews Rayn and Sage to carry signs personalized to us! So instead I created 2 different signs, for each of our ceremonies, that spoke to what Rayn & Sage call me (“Yammi”) and what they call Rohan (“Rohan Mama”) - to create a unique reveal each day!
We also designed our own invites and signage for each event, which matched the color schemes we picked for each event accordingly. Thank you, Canva!
3. A New Age Milni Tournament!
A traditional Milni Ceremony, which occurs in both Hindu & Sikh Punjabi weddings, is about the unification of two families. The men from the Bride’s side welcome the Groom’s side by exchanging flower garlands symbolizing the bonding of the two families. Traditionally, they greet the groom’s side in descending order, from the oldest generation to the youngest, filling in familial gaps with cousins. This portion of the Milni Ceremony is also an introduction for guests to see how each key person is related to the Bride and Groom respectively.
Early on we decided as a family that we wanted to include aunts in the Milni ceremony as well! Because it was 2022 and Rohan & I wanted our moms, grandma and aunts who were very special to us to be honored as well!
To make matters more entertaining we also came up with the idea to have a ‘tournament match up chart’ (a-la a NCAA bracket chart) so that our guests could see which uncles & aunts were matched up with who! The icing on the cake was having Rohan’s sister, Roma, MC the Milni like a true sporting event!
4. Dil or No Dil
Following the Milni it is usually tradition for the bridesmaids/bride’s side to restrict the groom from entering the mandap until he ‘pays up’. Early on I decided I wanted Rohan to ‘pay up’ in a unique way, related to our personal love of competition and games! So I came up with “Dil or No Dil” as a surprise! My awesome bridesmaids conducted a short game show where Rohan had to get to 500 points before he could enter the mandap! For the record, Rohan still paid the bridesmaids, and is still paying me by making good on all the promises he committed to in the game (although I am still waiting for him to take me to Hello Kitty land).
5. Kanya Aagaman aka Dilani’s “Super 8”
Kanya Aagaman literally translates to ‘the arrival of the bride’ and traditionally it is when the bride is escorted to the Mandap at the Hindu ceremony by her father and brothers. Depending on which part of India the family is from, the Bride’s sisters, friends, and cousins join the procession to the mandap.
A long time ago I decided I wanted to enter with my mom and brother again, but I also wanted to include a special selection of my nearest friends & cousins who I specially chose to escort me to the mandap. I called these special people my “Super 8” and they included my cousins Rani, Neeran & Tyronne, and some of my closest friends - Sangeeta, Camille, Hina, Manan & Navjeet. To this day, I am so happy I could include these special people in our ceremony to show them how much they all mean to me!
And finally - as written about in my previous post - Rohan and I also secretly added another unique touch to our Sangeet by conducting our own short film shoot, directed by filmmaker and friend Sabareesh Subramaniam! We had our videography team (Ice Cream Truck Films) record some fun interviews with select friends and family during our Sangeet, where they were asked questions Rohan & I specially drafted for them! The result was our own “mockumentary” that we like to call “The Sangeet” - which you can watch on YouTube now: