This Three-Day Wedding Celebration in Portugal Artfully Blended Malaysian and Bengali Traditions

For their wedding celebrations the weekend of July 17, 2025, the couple decided to host three days of events in Sintra, Portugal. “We saw ourselves reflected in Portugal’s aesthetic landscape." Sabrina says of their destination choice. “There’s an elegant interweaving of Chinese, Islamic, and Indian influences—most notably in the iconic blue-and-white azulejos, whose patterns were inspired by Chinese porcelain and echo motifs from Rajasthani and Moorish tilework.” The party would kick off with a joint bachelor-bachelorette party with 70 friends, featuring a three-hour sunset cruise, games, and karaoke. On Friday, the couple hosted a sangeet to honor Sabrina's Bengali roots, complete with pastel décor, live henna stations, and choreographed dances from the couple’s friends and family. On Saturday, both a Chinese tea ceremony and a Western wedding ceremony and reception would take place. The couple worked with the Portugal-based planner Ana Coelho Duarte to help produce the multi-day wedding, and deciding on the catering was a major part of their planning process. “Nigel’s career made it necessary to have excellent Asian food at the wedding; good food is also how he expresses love,” says Sabrina.

The couple would each wear four looks throughout their wedding festivities. “I knew from the beginning our clothing and jewelry choices were going to be deeply meaningful and symbols that visually anchor the story of who we are and our heritage,” says the bride. For the sangeet, Sabrina shares she always dreamed of wearing a soft pink, floral-embroidered lehenga. She paid a visit with Nigel to Dolly J Studio when traveling to New Delhi for his Asia tour. “It’s a contemporary blend of Western and South Asian styles with the long thin veil train in place of a traditional dupatta,” explains the bride. “Dolly instructed her design team to lengthen the veil to a custom length for more drama, and I love the way it turned out.”

Sabrina hoped to complement the look with green jewelry. “Dolly highly recommended I go to Purab Paschim in the same area, Ambawatta One, a well-known luxury shopping plaza,” she says. “They had a set that perfectly matched the antique gold detailing with green stones that reflect the mint flowers in the gown, so I bought it on the spot.” This shopping trip also helped her find Nigel’s sangeet look. “I walked through Ambawatta One and saw a mannequin in the window of Shasha Gaba with exactly the kind of sherwani I wanted Nigel to wear,” she shares. “The pink matched the fabric swatch I was carrying in my bag from Dolly J perfectly, so I bought it right off the mannequin.”

For the Chinese tea ceremony, the bride hoped to find a qipao that was distinct to Southeast Asian cultures. “I came across this ornate and dramatic style of qipao that originated in Indonesia and became popular in Malaysia and Singapore,” she says. “These couture designers have combined Southeast Asian glamour with traditional Chinese silk qipaos to create stunning gowns adorned with heavy beading, sequins, and floral embroidery.” Sabrina connected with Gisela Ekachristie and Melissa Anggono of Indonesian brand Renee Couture to create her garment filled with detailed embellishments and embroidery. “The embroidery depicts our dragon and goat zodiac signs under cherry blossoms—in reference to our engagement—in a flower field surrounding our home along with another in the distance, representing the life we have built in California and London,” says Sabrina. “The double phoenix symbolizes a harmonious union and balanced marriage. We chose deep red versus traditional bright red to draw a parallel to my Bengali reception saree, visually joining the two cultures together.”

The bride worked with accessories brand Le Ciel to finish the look with two hair pins, a tiara, and a fan adorned with Swarovski crystals. She also wore a jewelry set from SK Jewelers featuring lilies and the “double happiness” Chinese character, which represents the union of marriage. Nigel’s mother also gifted her a jade eggplant necklace during the ceremony that symbolized fertility, abundance, protection, and purity. “Bengali and Indian communities practice a similar practice in gifting the bride gold jewelry, so my mother presented my late grandmother’s gold bangle during this ceremony as well," she says.

The groom wore a custom tang jacket gifted from Indonesian tailor Samuel Wongso that matched the shade of the bride’s qipao. “Sam Wongso was kind enough to fly in from Indonesia to meet us multiple times in Malaysia for fittings,” says Sabrina. “Again, stepping away from the traditional Chinese kwa, Nigel chose a tailored tang jacket in a deep red velvet.” Le Ciel gave Nigel a brooch that coordinated with the bride’s ensemble to further tie their looks together.

The bride would wear white for their traditional Western wedding ceremony. “I initially never imagined getting married in a white dress because no one in my family has before—and to be honest, it was a bit controversial at first,” shares Sabrina. “But in spite of that, it was a loving gift from my mother.” Vivienne Westwood would be the only designer that she would try on. “I visited both the shop in London 6 Davies Street, caught them serendipitously on the last day of their trunk sale, and just put a deposit down before I even picked a dress,” she says. Sabrina tried the gowns one more time on a visit to Los Angeles and selected their made-to-measure Comet corset paired with their Davina skirt. “In person, the silk moved like ripples in a lake, shimmering in its simplicity,” she says. She paired the style with tailored gloves and a veil from Vivienne Westwood, along with Monica Vinader baroque pearl earrings and Aquazzura heels.

For his black-tie ensemble, Nigel wore a Ralph Lauren Purple Label tuxedo with Crockett and Jones shoes. “Surprisingly, Nigel has a strong opinion about formalwear, and it is uncompromisingly classic,” shares the bride. “After living in London for over a decade, he developed a love for traditional tailoring, often getting his suits made on Savile Row. As with most things in his personal life, everything he chose was thoughtful, understated, and built to stand the test of time.”

Later in the evening, the couple would pay homage to Sabrina’s parents’ wedding photos. “It was my father’s dream to see me get married, and my dream for him to be there, but he sadly passed away in February 2021 before Nigel and I met,” says the bride. “As an homage to his legacy, and them as wonderful parents, I wore my mother’s wedding saree from April 1987 with all her original jewelry. A lifelong lover of fashion, my grandfather handpicked the saree himself for her on a solo shopping trip. So although I never met him, I could also feel his love for her when I wore it.” Nigel also mirrored Sabrina’s father’s white after-party shirt with an off-white Purple Label dinner jacket and a wine red handkerchief to match the saree.

The wedding weekend arrived, and the bride and groom were in high spirits after their joint bachelor and bachelorette celebration for the sangeet. “I wanted to design something I had personally never experienced before, which was to visually express my culture in a fully pastel pallet, one that reflects Lisbon’s iconic colorway and my own love for soft colors,” says Sabrina of the sangeet’s aesthetic. “We ordered every guest’s outfit for this event, and worked with Koki from Tilak’s Silk Saree House in Malaysia to source almost every saree to create a gentle, floral dreamscape. We also spent months finding every guest’s tailors all over the world to have them pre-stitched and made to measure, and still provided them saree drapers to help on the day of.”

The event was filled with cultural traditions and an incredible meal. “The dinner took place in the glass house as the sun was setting, the ceilings draped in a cloud of greenery and pink cloth lamps, and tables topped with ranunculus sprouting from oranges and grapefruits,” says the bride. “The thriving South Asian community in Portugal was reflected in the quality of our Sangeet caterer, Passage to India—easily some of the best South Asian food outside of Asia we’ve had (and that’s high praise from us both).” The crescendo of the night was when friends and family performed 15 minutes of surprise choreographed dances for the couple, followed by an open dance floor until midnight.

The Chinese tea ceremony the next morning had two parts. The first involved traditional games as the groom and his groomsmen arrive at the bride’s “house” and must face trials by the bridesmaids in order to enter. “In Chinese culture we talk about the concept of brotherhood—guy friends that are your ride or die—and that concept really came to the surface during the Chinese games, especially when we were taking turns doing pushups,” says Nigel. The second part is much more sentimental, where the couples serve tea to their elders. “As we received and shared our blessings, I felt our two families truly joined together in that moment,” shares Sabrina. “I also loved that we started such an emotional day with so much laughter; seeing him get down on one knee belting Shania Twain was as hilarious as it was touching.”

That evening, the couple would say “I do” at their final wedding celebration. “Our mothers walked us down the aisle, our wedding party stood by us the first half of the ceremony, and we stood alone as we shared our personal vows, which was the emotional climax of the weekend,” says the bride. As Nigel saw Sabrina walk down the aisle to “Eyes on Me” by Faye Wong, it seemed like just the two of them were present. In his words “When I saw Sabrina walk down the aisle, I felt like I was looking at the most beautiful woman in the world, and with the flowers, the decor, the swell of the string quartet, it felt as if everything was moving in slow motion.” The bride adds, “Nigel is a practical man not one for emotional displays, so I couldn’t believe my eyes when he lifted the veil how tears were streaming down his face. His vows were so thoughtful, and poetically moving, I was in shock, holding back tears; it was a surreal dream to hear him speak from the heart so vulnerably. The entire audience was sobbings.”

After the ceremony, guests mingled and enjoyed cocktail hour as the sounds of Brazilian Bossa Nova played. The couple stole away for photos and to rehearse their choreographed ballroom first dance one last time. “We danced to his favorite love ballad, ‘Ai Shi Yong Heng’ by Jacky Cheung, an incredibly dramatic song which we decorated with lifts, spins, and dips,” says Sabrina. After dinner and speeches, the couple made their final outfit change and entered in their new looks along with Chinese lion dancers. After cutting their cake—a multi-colored confection featuring lavender lemon cake with a layer of cream cheese frosting, apricot jam, and walnuts covered in piped buttercream—the couple joined their guests for dancing until 3 a.m. A late-night noodle bar was the perfect finish to the evening.

Reflecting on the weekend, the couple realize that all their hard work was worth it to bring together such an incredible celebration for their circle. “Marrying Sabrina is the greatest achievement of my life, and it was the most beautiful note to start our life together,” says Nigel.