A Midsummer Night’s Dream Inspired This East-Meets-West Wedding in Upstate New York

Rem surprised Preetha with an itinerary that included all of her favorite summer activities, before he revealed the big surprise: a photo shoot for their puppy. “There are few things I love more than taking cute pictures of our dog, especially when she was so small,” Preetha laughs.

“Our photographer, Tyler from TyGar Photography, met us at Wolf Cove Inn, where he took a series of gorgeous photos of Aja,” she continues. “As the sun set, Rem tied Aja to the stairs and led me down to the dock. He explained that he wanted some photos of just us. We faced each other and Rem took my hands in his before asking me, ‘Do you know what’s happening?’ In disbelief, I awkwardly asked if this was a proposal, to which Rem replied, ‘Yes.’ At that moment, he got down on one knee, ring in hand, and asked me if I would marry him. I burst out in joyful laughter and said yes!” Everyone at Wolf Cove Inn was in on Rem’s proposal plans, and as Preetha said yes, they were met with applause and cheers from the other guests and staff at the Inn.

After heading back to Greenwich, Connecticut, to celebrate their engagement with both of their immediate families, the couple went to work on planning their wedding. “We felt that while our marriage is about us, our wedding is a celebration of the union of and for our two families,” Preetha says. “Despite their different backgrounds, both of our families deeply value tradition, and we wanted to honor that through every aspect of design.”

Preetha worked with artists and designers from both East and West for her entire wedding weekend wardrobe, tapping stylist Prerana Srikantappa to help bring her vision to life. “My faith is very important to me and my family, so Rem and I had a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on June 1, a day picked by our priest,” the bride says. “For this event, I wanted to keep things classically South Indian and I wanted my look to come directly from my parents. My mother sourced traditional red and gold Kanchipuram silk saris from Angadi Silks in Bangalore and Nalli Chinnasami Chetty in Madras, two houses we have decades-long relationships with.”

Preetha and Rem both share a love for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and felt that the feverish heat and lush florals of late July in the northeast would work perfectly with that theme for their bigger wedding with family and friends. With that in mind, they thought of their three wedding events at the bride’s family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Hyatt Greenwich, and at Blue Hill at Stone Barns as individual acts, each becoming more and more topsy-turvy. “Our hope was to leave guests feeling enchanted, as if in a fever dream, wondering if what they experienced was real,” Preetha says.

The celebrations kicked off with a mehndi, a women-only event held in the bride’s family’s backyard in Greenwich. “We wanted this event to look distinctly South Indian but feel familiar to all the guests,” Preetha says. “I took inspiration from my parent’s family homes in Madras and Mangalore to help direct the decor. Most importantly, I wanted this event to take my mother back to her childhood. My favorite memories of my mother are mostly in India; listening to her sing Carnatic songs with my grandmother and reading while drinking hot cups of South Indian-style coffee on the oonjal, a large swing traditionally found in Indian Tamil homes. Brass pots, jasmine, marigold, and dark green foliage helped us bring India to Greenwich.” South Indian finger foods and other vegetarian fare were served alongside a peach bourbon charm cake by Elizabeth Mayhew, while the New York-based band Akshara played traditional Carnatic music.

For the sangeet—a traditional Indian pre-wedding event that involves festive dancing and celebratory songs—the couple worked with their wedding planner Vaishali Deshpande to reinvent the ballroom at the Hyatt Greenwich to feel like an eerie and mysterious forest clearing, working with Ivie Joy Florals to create a backdrop of mist, moss, fireflies, flowers in dark shades, and carnivorous plants. “We hoped that to anyone who passed by, the event would seem fantastical and dream-like,” Preetha says. “And that guests would feel like they were part of a deepening secret or on a journey towards something arcane.”

Preetha and Rem wanted to wear something fun for the sangeet, but also traditionally Indian. “For our non-Indian guests, this was their big opportunity to wear Indian outfits, and we wanted to meet them there!” Preetha explains. “Our dear friend Anjula Acharia connected us to Falguni Shane Peacock. I’ve always loved the glitz and glam of Falguni’s work, and I wanted to wear something designed by her for one of my events.”

To create their looks, Preetha and Rem flew to Bombay, and under Falguni’s direction, selected matching outfits in golds and taupes from her newest collectsion. Sabyasachi Mukherjee designed a custom necklace and earring set with Falguni to match the outfit, and everything was paired with nude Christian Louboutin heels with crystal detail and a Judith Leiber clutch.

While the sangeet was an important stop along the journey, the ceremony was the real destination. “We designed our ceremony as an arrival into the inner circle of our enchanted court,” Preetha says of the set-up. Held indoors at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Preetha wanted there to be a sense of cohesiveness between the two bridal parties and their families’ fashion using color. “Since Rem and I were getting married in traditional Indian garb, it felt balanced to have the colors reflect my husband’s family: French blue for the blue hydrangeas and ocean loved by my mother- and father-in-law, and white for their wedding traditions,” Preetha says. “We ended up designing two custom gowns, one for the ceremony and one for the reception, that could be heirloom pieces for generations to come.” She eventually settled on a chikankari embroidered gown by Tarun Tahilani with a matching bandana collar for her dog, Aja, as well as custom Chanel ivory silk shoes with pearl details to match.

The ceremony flowers by Ivie Joy came in shades of whites and greens, matched to the couple’s wedding crest, designed by artist Emma Garfield of Marblehead, Massachusetts. There were two officiants, Pandit Dinesh Paliwal and Reverend Mark Robinson, close friends of the father of the bride and the father of the groom respectively. They met before the wedding to craft a sermon that incorporated Episcopalian and Hindu traditions in a way that blended the two religions seamlessly. “Originally, my sister was supposed to walk our dog down the aisle with Rem’s best man, but because of a logistical error, my father walked our pup and I down the aisle!” Preetha says. “A truly wonderful mistake that everyone involved was overjoyed about.”

After the ceremony, guests enjoyed cocktail hour where, in addition to an open bar, they were served cocktails inspired by each of the couple’s family pets and farm-to-table appetizers. Dinner followed soon after, and guests were served an Indian-influenced Blue Hill tasting menu with wine pairings. The couple wanted their wedding meal—like everything else—to be a union of our two families and values. Though Blue Hill is renowned for its farm-to-table, seasonal American cuisine, they wanted to see how they could incorporate South Indian ingredients into something not quite American, but not quite Indian either. “This was a nod to the life Rem and I were creating as well as an homage to my father, who taught me to love nature, food, and frugality—though I’m not excellent at the last one,” Preetha says. “Blue Hill’s farm-to-table and no-waste mentality embodied my father’s values perfectly, and their celebration of seasonal American produce and farming honored my husband’s all-American heritage.” Following the dinner, the bride and groom’s parents, best man, and maid and man of honor all gave speeches. They closed out dinner with a Swedish drinking song led by the man of honor before heading to the first dances.

Preetha worked with Reem Acra to design a second wedding dress for the reception. With the chikankari work being prominently featured on her ceremony lehenga, she wanted to work lace into her reception dress. “I asked both sets of parents to share the birds and plants they loved most, and we used their answers to design a custom lace for the dress,” Preetha says. “Reem designed a lace with jasmine, hibiscus, mango leaves, and hummingbirds from my parents and hydrangeas, ferns, and the Myers’ family sailing burgee from Rem’s parents.” She wore Christian Louboutin lace heels and her mother’s diamond necklace and diamond earrings. The groom changed into a white dinner tuxedo and black Meermin oxford shoes before the mother-son dance to “Jump, Jive an’ Wail” by Louis Prima.

Preetha and her father then danced to “Sunshine on My Shoulder” by John Denver. “It’s a song my father and I sang together on many road trips,” Preetha says. “To close out our father-daughter dance, we surprised our guests by putting on sunglasses and dancing to Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool,’ another childhood family favorite!”

For the after-party, the bride changed into a custom Manish Malhotra dress covered in gunmetal and black acrylic diamond-shaped paillettes and platinum Sophia Webster heels. And while Maine-based DJ KTF set up his turntables, Blue Hill served up lobster rolls, southern fried chicken sliders, and grilled cheese with tomato soup to anyone on the dance floor in need of sustenance and a second wind—all to keep the party going until 2:30 a.m.