Nashville weddings

An AMAZING Nashville Wedding, Full of Color and Culture

Friday, December 3, 2010

After a crash course in traditional Chinese weddings when my husband and I got married, I have a newfound respect for ethnic wedding traditions from all over.  There are no shortcuts; every little thing is symbolic and the wedding ceremonies, though long, are as beautiful and meaningful as they are elaborate.  In today's real wedding feature, we get a quick glimpse into what I can only imagine to be an amazing day for Sneha and Lee.  Starting with a traditional Indian wedding ceremony, the couple cap the night off with an elegant reception.  The wedding was photographed by McLellan Style (who we LOVE) and planned/coordinated by A Delightful Day Event Planning (who we also LOVE). It's thanks to them that we get to share this spectacular wedding with you!

South Meets East - An Indian Wedding in Nashville

Bride ~ Sneha Channabasappa
Groom ~ Lee Oakley

Wedding Date & Time ~ June 5, 2010
Ceremony ~ 10:30 a.m. at Sri Ganesha Temple
Reception ~ 6:30 p.m. at the Hutton Hotel
Guests ~ 250

Wedding Style

What was your wedding style?
I really wanted our wedding to be a reflection of me and Lee, and we both like very clean, modern designs. So, I would say that our style was modern and chic.

What were your colors?
Why did you chose them? Pink and gold. Pink and gold are two of my favorite colors.

Did you have a theme? What was it?
I love the Indian paisley design and I really wanted to incorporate it into our wedding. We did it on a minimal scale, so as not to overdo it. For example, our florist made a large paisley design out of rose petals on the wedding aisle-runner, it was incorporated into our wedding cake design, in the lighting elements at our reception. We also had paisley themed wedding invitations in our pink and gold colors.

What did you use for inspiration?
I got my inspiration mostly from my mom’s sarees and other Indian fabrics that I had seen. Because Indian weddings aren’t always featured on wedding blogs and websites, I did a lot of Google searches to find designs that I really liked.

Wedding Scoop

What was your budget?
We did not have a budget, but our wedding ended up costing around $100,000.

What was your wedding WOW factor?
Our guests continue to tell us how much they loved the flowers from Oshi Flowers and the food from the Hutton. We also received a lot of compliments on our ice sculpture. My favorite WOW factor element was the giant chandelier we used over the dance floor.

What did you give as favors to your guests?
We gave out two favors. At our wedding, in traditional Indian fashion, we gave gift bags that contained a box of Indian sweet and savory snacks, along with some fruit. For our reception, we gave everyone personalized Loveless Café jams. The labels had our names, wedding date and the phrase, “Spread the love.” They were so cute!

How did you personalize your wedding?
We used a lot of my mom’s vintage sarees and Indian fabrics for decoration, did custom “Just Married” M&Ms in our wedding colors with our save the date picture on them (our save the date picture had our faces photoshopped onto a little cartoon Indian bride and groom).

What did you give your bridesmaids and groomsmen?
We purchased all of their bridal party outfits and jewelry for them.

What was your most special moment of the day?
Walking into the Temple wedding hall and seeing all my family and friends, and having Lee and his family participate in our cultural traditions. It meant a lot to me. It was also so exciting to see Lee waiting for me.

Did you have kids at your wedding? What did you do for them?
We had kids at our ceremony, but not at the reception.

Did you Do It Yourself? Or, did you leave it to the professionals?
We left a lot to professionals, but my mom and her friends made all the snacks and sweets that were given in our gift bags and out of town guest bags.

Wedding Vendors:
~ Planner: Mary Alice Sublett, A Delightful Day
~ Cake(s): Maples Wedding Cakes
~ Caterer(s): Hutton Hotel; Sitar Indian Cuisine; Woodland’s Indian Cuisine
~ Photographer: McLellan Style
~ Videographer: None
~ Stationery: Ajalon Printing and Design (Santa Rosa, CA)
~ Bridesmaid Dresses: Om Boutique (New Jersey)
~ Rings: Genesis Diamonds
~ Music: Aaron Hartley of Hartley Entertainment
~ Decorations/Detail: Oshi Flowers, Specialty Ice Carvings, Nashville Event Lighting, Classic Party Rentals
~ Bridal Gown: Shamika Silks (India) and Om Boutique
~ Tuxes: None.
~ Accessories: Mother’s and Grandmother’s jewelry
~ Flowers: Oshi Flowers
~ Transportation: None
~ Gifts: Loveless Café and homemade
~ Henna: Beth Boyd Hendrickson of New World Henna (Memphis)
~ Hair and Make-Up: Chase Taylor (Hair); Rachel Dwyer (Make-up)

Who were your favorites? {the ones you would highly recommend to your best friend}:
McLellan Style (Sean and Melanie McLellan are amazingly talented and wonderful to work with); Beth Hendrickson (so sweet and super talented); Maples Wedding Cakes; Oshi Flowers. Actually, I would recommend every vendor we worked with. They were all amazing and made the day perfect!

Wedding Rewind

What would you do differently if you could start back at the beginning?
I would invite more people – we had so much fun and I would just want more people to join us for it!

What do you consider the biggest waste of time and/or money?
I feel like we used our wedding dollars very wisely. I can’t really think of anything that we “wasted” time or money doing. I carefully considered every decision, so if I thought it was a waste money (e.g., limousines), I just didn’t do it.

What do you consider the best value for the service and product?
I felt like the lighting, chandelier and ice sculpture provided huge designs elements for little money. I had originally wanted to do a lot of draping in our reception ballroom, but found that I could get a bigger WOW factor with these three elements for far less money.

What was your biggest {and best} splurge?
Definitely flowers. Flowers were one of my most important elements. We used a lot of orchids and they were gorgeous! We rented 12 foot palms for the cocktail area and ballroom at our reception. They were a little expensive, but really worth it. They were gorgeous and really made the rooms feel you were transported to the tropics. We also splurged on our letterpress invitations, but they were gorgeous and really set the tone for the event.

Thank you Sneha and Lee for giving us a look into your very vibrant, extremely beautiful wedding day!  We hope you're both having a blast being married to each other and we wish you all the best in your life together.  Thank you also to A Delightful Day Wedding planning and McLellan Style (McLellanStyle.com) for sending us the pictures, they're gorgeous!  Please don't hesitate to visit A Delightful Day online to find out more about them and to check out some of their other weddings.  Be sure to let them know you're an ABG bride and you'll receive a special gift when you book them for your wedding!

About the Author:

Tabitha

Blogging is something I’ve enjoyed doing for years. My interests lie mostly in lifestyle related topics like fashion, style, design, food and weddings. When I heard Ashley was looking to bring on new members to the ABG team, I jumped at the opportunity - I can’t think of a better way to stay involved in weddings than to write about them and to stay in touch with the trends and new ideas. Lucky for me, Ashley likes my blog and trusts my experience to bring me on and so far, it’s been a blast.

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send   Posted on December 3, 2010 | Filed under: Real Nashville Weddings