KalyKnits

My [now] husband and I got engaged about a year ago (after a not particularly romantic discussion in which we mutually decided it was time then me asking him to buy me a fairly specific ring) and I have been furiously planning my ideal wedding ever since. I really should have kept track of what I was doing as I was doing it but alas, I shall try to recall the trials and tribulations here for posterity.

My very first thought about the wedding was “we should serve both Indian and Korean food” because, frankly, I love food and think about it all of the time. We agreed that it had to be indoors, as we do not trust Michigan weather not to betray us, and a hotel would be ideal since almost all of my family would be coming from out of town. Then-fiancé suggested a hotel in the next suburb over where a nerd convention used to be held and I put that on my mental list of places to contact.

According to my expenses spreadsheet, I started planning in July of 2023 and my first purchases were a wax seal with our initials and an embosser with our names on it. Obviously, I was eager to jump into the personalized stuff! I later bought a stamp with our names and wedding date but that Etsy shop seems to have disappeared since then. Anyway, before I could do much more planning and purchasing, we needed a venue.

I created a gmail address (myname.and.hisname because the other way around was not available) and an account at theknot.com and contacted about half a dozen hotels in the area, including the one my fiancé had initially suggested and inquired about their availability and rules regarding outside catering. Of the four hotels that got back to me in a reasonable amount of time, the only one that allowed outside catering was his pick, so that is the one we went with! I had originally been thinking about April but then Memorial Day weekend came up and I loved the idea because that meant we could do both the sangeet and the wedding on weekend days and jumped on booking it. I mean, I took him along to tour the venue before signing the contract and writing a deposit check but it was just a formality at that point, honestly. We booked their larger ballroom for two days and got a 30 room hotel block set up.

The day my ring came (it was ordered online) we had a double date with some friends of ours so we used the opportunity to have something of an informal engagement photo shoot. The pictures turned out well enough that I decided to use one for our Save-the-Date card. I put both dates on the card since we hoped everybody would attend both events but apparently this confused some people. “What day do I come?” some of his white relatives apparently asked.

I started in August by purchasing wedding insurance. I cannot speak to the quality of the policy since we did not have to use it (fortunately) but it seemed like a good idea for such an expensive wedding, especially since my father was sick (lung cancer with brain metastases) and his prognosis was uncertain. My parents were, luckily, happy to pay for my wedding. My father had actually set some money aside for the event some months earlier before we were even talking about it. Of course, we had been together for six years at that point and living together for over three so maybe it was not such a crazy idea! My mother has never been the event planning type so I was not surprised that she had few demands regarding specifics. She asked that I hire a photographer and have an album made for them and that I get some nice flowers; that was about the end of it. I did expect my mother-in-law (I have actually been referring to her as such for a couple of years at this point) to have some opinions, I heard that she basically planned and organized her daughter’s wedding some fifteen years ago, but she was pretty chill too. We were really lucky to have parental support without parental interference.

Also in August, I booked a string quartet, hair & makeup artists, a DJ, and a photographer. I figured I needed to lock them down ASAP since it was a holiday weekend. When picking a beauty team, I decided to go with one that had both white and Indian brides in their portfolio since I figured that made them most likely to be able to get me dolled up right. For a DJ, I needed one who could do karaoke since I determined that our family and friends were highly unlikely to plan and choreograph Bollywood-style performances, the amateur-friendly nature of karaoke would encourage more participation. I did waffle a bit when it came to videography but in the end decided that we are highly unlikely to watch a wedding video in the future but a nice album and photos for the walls are must-haves.

Also in August, I started working on my “project” as I would call it when I retreated to my craft room for many subsequent evenings. I had a lot of whimsical fabric left over from when I was making masks during covid and decided to use it to make gift bags for the guests. I purchased some ribbon for drawstrings and muslin for lining and dove into mass producing the bags. I did end up buying a little more whimsical fabric to work with but relatively little given how many bags I ended up making. I still have like 20 of them left since I overestimated the number of guests who would attend. I guess I know what I am using instead of wrapping paper for a little while!

Online, I bought what I decided was my dream wedding dress. I sent my measurements and eagerly awaited its arrival. I used to think I might wear more of a western-style dress but always wanted it to have some Indian influence to it – gold and red embroidery and maybe a sari type border but when it came time to actually buy a dress, I decided to lean further into the Indian thing and just buy a lehenga. I have never been comfortable in a saree but a lehenga is just a two-piece dress and there are a lot more color and style options than a traditional white wedding gown. Once it arrived though, I was disappointed to find that (a) the fabric was far less white than it looked online and (b) it did not fit. I could squeeze into it but was unable to zip up either the blouse or the skirt and because of the way it was constructed and lined, it could not easily be let out. Most Indian dresses are sewn with multiple rows of stitching to make it easy to “open up” as they say; this was not. I remained hopeful that I would lose some more weight before the wedding (I had been losing some for a few months at that point) and still be able to wear that dress because even though it was cream, I still loved it.

Deciding on a color scheme was difficult. I like a lot of colors – most of them really, except for yellow and orange. I probably like pink (not surprising given my ring) and purple the most but with red in my dress, I was not sure about going that way. When I told my fiancé I planned to wear an Indian dress, he asked what he would be wearing. I told him it was up to him; he could wear a traditional suit or tuxedo, an Indian kurta pyjama, or a Korean hanbok. I was almost kidding about that last part since although he is half-Korean, he was mostly raised white without a lot of exposure to Korean culture or traditions and he had never worn a hanbok before in his life but his face lit up at the idea and I knew the decision had been made. His immigrant mother was assimilated into American culture when she came here in the seventies after marrying his father and, in my [admittedly judgmental] opinion, was gaslit into believing that there was no need to celebrate her culture or instill it into her children. I am biased because being half-Indian is a huge part of who I am, but it makes me sad that he was not similarly exposed to his mother’s heritage. Anyway, since entering adulthood, my fiancé has been trying to get more in touch with Korean culture (we eat Korean barbecue not infrequently) and this wedding seemed like the perfect opportunity to lean more into that.

Upon reading about Korean wedding traditions, I learned that grooms generally wear blue and brides (like in Indian tradition) wear red. Their families will wear similar colors, often lighter shades, to show to which side they belong. I was not about to ask my mother to wear pink, it is one of the few colors she actually abhors, but I could force it on my bridesmaids! I did not remotely fool myself that my bridesmaids would be able to wear their dresses again but feel no guilt about that since I bought the dresses and did not ask them to pay for the one-time-use garments. I set about looking for something that would work. We went with a small wedding party, just our siblings and my BFF, so there were not too many outfits to buy. My best friend does have sensitive skin, so I was looking for real silk and, like me, she is not a conventional size, so I needed something customizable. Even though Indian dresses are made to order, they will often have a maximum size based on the material and that is a couple of inches smaller than my bust. After a fair amount of searching, I found a dress that would suit these requirements and got both bridesmaids to give me their measurements.

The groomsmen took some thinking. Originally, I was going to put them in blue suits and waffled a little between navy blue and a lighter shade. In the end, I decided to go with charcoal gray, which could likely be used again, and blue ties. My fiancé did go back and forth a bit about his best man. His best friend would be the obvious choice but that gentleman is also ordained to perform ceremonies and is an excellent orator, so he was also the first choice to marry us. Forced to make a decision, my fiancé decided to ask his brother to be his best man and his best friend to officiate. In retrospect, it was the right decision – his friend (our friend) did a great job.

The first thing my fiancé’s niece said when she heard we were getting married was “I get to be a flower girl, right?” I guess a friend of hers had recently had the honor and she liked the idea. Of course the answer was yes but not on her own. She was nine by the time of our wedding and I have a niece one year younger, so we wanted them to take on the task together. Since they come from both of our families, I decided to blend the blue and pink and put them in purple dresses. This worked out since it is a favorite color of both girls. Once the dresses arrived though, there was some concern about the open back letting them get cold so I bought some cream colored yarn and made them a pair of matching sweaters. My nephew, as an adolescent, was too old to be a ring bearer, so I decided to give him a reading to perform. I asked my raised-Catholic fiancé to pick out a Bible passage for that purpose.

I still had no idea what to do décor-wise or where to get flowers. I saw some advice about getting a day-of coordinator and decided to try that in the hope that they could help me source what I needed for ambiance. I spoke to a few options and ended up hiring Elegant Event Planning. We were never planning on having a full-on Indian wedding but it seemed like a good idea to have somebody who was familiar with the needs of one. The owners there, Val and Riddhi, got décor (draping, mandap, silk flowers) and florals (bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres) all set up for us, I just had to give some color-choices and they took care of it! They also had multiple calls with us and took care of interfacing with our other vendors day of as well as set up that was as detailed as I needed it to be, it was definitely a good idea to hire them, it gave me peace of mind.

In the spirit of embracing his Korean heritage, we started looking into ideas for something traditional to do at the wedding and came up with the pyebaek, which we decided to do right before the sangeet. It was harder than I had hoped to source all of the various things we needed for the ceremony. There are services in some larger cities that will do a whole setup for you but I could not find anything in the Detroit area so we ended up renting the robes from an Etsy seller and collecting the other components kind of willy-nilly from various sources. I thought we might end up buying hanboks from Etsy since I did not know where to get any locally and we still needed something to wear under the pyebaek robes (plus he would be wearing one for the ceremony) but then, when we were in Georgia visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, we decided to give Atlanta’s Koreatown a try. We almost missed out but at the last minute before we had to go pick up my brother from the airport, we discovered Hanbok Town, where the proprietor spoke very little English but was able to get her daughter on the phone to help translate. It was actually fortuitous that we are fat for Asians because there were very few hanboks there that we could even try on but we both got outfits that fit and picked them up later that week on our way back to Michigan!

As time went on, I kept working on my bag project, deciding to make a different shape of bag (with handles) for the kids who would attend the wedding and buying stuff for gift bags. In addition to learning about the pyebaek, when researching Korean wedding stuff, we found out that it is traditional for wooden ducks to be given to the bride and groom by their parents so we decided to include a little rubber duck as a part of the favor. Additionally, I decided I liked the idea of giving away dice trays because even if people don’t play dice games, they can be used to hold jewelry, keys, and other little things, so I ordered faux-leather trays lined with velvet and got some gold ink to stamp them with the rubber stamp I had bought. I found that the ink would not set quickly and they had to sit out for a few days in order to dry enough to touch. Even so, the ink can be wiped off with water and maybe a little soap but still, I liked the look enough to stick with it and stamped a bunch of dice trays, ordering them in batches so I could keep doing so even as we did not know how many guests we would have. I had a few other ideas for the kid favors, ordering a customized coloring book from Etsy and stuff like bubbles and silly putty to put in their bags as well. I also ordered customized pens, which is a little more corporate than celebratory but hey, it was fun!

The other thing I was doing all along was gathering art. My fiancé is a big animation nerd and has gotten me to enjoy the genre as well. A few years ago, I commissioned a drawing of us as characters from Steven Universe and had it printed on canvas for Valentine’s Day. I set about looking for artists on Etsy and Instagram who would do similar things with different cartoons that we have watched together. I ended up with plenty! A couple did not make the cut but in the end, I had 21 to use as table numbers, with each table bearing the name of the cartoon in whose style we were drawn.

On my fiancé’s birthday, we got cake samples from Sorella’s and had his family help us taste and evaluate them. I put him in charge of cake although he did not really do it alone. Although the design was 100% his idea and the flavors were ultimately his decision, he kept asking for input, it is cute how much he wanted to make sure I was satisfied with every decision. I did buy the cake topper (which is what drove his design idea). It is our characters from Animal Crossing in ethnic wear. We played that game a lot not long after I moved in and covid hit. Despite the state of the world at that time, we have some really good memories of the game and the characters are super cute. We were very pleased with how well the topper turned out. I also ended up ordering cupcake spikes with game characters for the additional cupcakes we got for our dessert table. They were super cute!

Going back to clothes, I ordered a dress for the reception and shoes to wear with all my Indian outfits as well as Korean shoes for the both of us. Apparently, Korean women all have feet smaller than mine because I got the biggest ones I could find and they were still about a half size too small. Also, they have something of a heel, which is not great because the two of us are about the same height when barefoot but my fiancé is secure in his masculinity and neither of us gets worked up if I look taller than him, I just figured it was better to try to avoid comments if possible. To differentiate him from the groomsmen, we got him a blue vest and gold tie to wear to the reception. His father got a tie in a different shade of blue than the others, our officiant got a purple tie, and my nephew picked a gold bow tie after being told he could have whichever one he wanted (except for old-fashioned bow ties, nobody we know can tie one of those, he had to get a pre-tied one). In the meantime, I did not lose weight, rather, I gained some back and so had to get a backup dress because I knew how unlikely it was that I could get the one I liked so much altered to fit. Also, my white grandmother expressed an interest in wearing Indian clothes! My surprise disappated when I realized she probably just did not want to shop for another outfit in addition to the one she wore to my brother’s wedding 15 years ago. Still, it worked out okay, I found something that I thought she would be comfortable in.

I did no shopping of any kind for our sangeet attire. I thought it might be fun for my aunt(s) to pick out. I have two aunts who live in India and two Indian aunts in the US. Both of the latter went to India to visit in the early part of the year, so I tasked them with working it out among themselves and picking out outfits for us in the blue-turquoise-green family that matched plus jewelry for me. One aunt picked it out, one aunt got it tailored and packed up, and one aunt paid for it, so it was kind of a group effort! The lehenga they got me was so very heavy but also very beautiful. I did have to have it let out a little bit but a tailor named Prema who works out of her home and does not have a website did a great job of making it fit me!

In January, we sent out the invitations. Including plus-ones, we invited 210 people. Responses were slow to come in and by our stated deadline of April 6th, only about half the people we had invited had responded either way. We ended up having to chase down a lot of people and unfortunately, many of the responses were “no,” especially from his family. In the end, we got 109 yesses for the pyebaek / sangeet and 132 for the wedding/reception. I admit to being concerned about there not being enough people there and considered inviting a bunch of people from work (I had previously determined to set a hard line and not invite any work colleagues) but in the end, I decided it was fine, only people who want to be there will come and I will survive even with a small crowd.

My father’s health continued to decline and by February, he was wheelchair-bound. That month, they moved back to Michigan from Georgia. It was a good choice for multiple reasons; I am nearby, my father has medical school friends in town, and in a less rural area, they have notably better access to in-home health care. Instead of having an aide sporadically a few hours a day for a few days a week, my father now has an aide 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, which is of great help to my mother! Even though they were closer, neither of my parents took to meddling in my wedding planning though they did continue to fund it!

In March, my BFF came to town and together with my fiancé and a mutual friend, we went to taste food at the Indian caterer, Shalimar. I was actually a little disappointed with their saag paneer (so we did not end up ordering that) but otherwise it was quite good! I was supposed to have my hair and makeup trial the next day but the artist was sick and had to postpone, so I ended up doing that on a different date without my BFF / MoH present. I think it went pretty well though, I felt beautiful! They used some pins they had on hand for my hair but I liked them enough to buy similar ones for the wedding and a different sort for the sangeet. Not long afterward, we went with my in-laws to the hotel to taste their food. The hotel was going to try to make some Korean food since we were not able to secure a Korean caterer. The venue required that the caterer provide buffet staff and be licensed and insured for the task and even though I called Korean restaurants up to two hours’ drive away, I could only find ones who were able to do drop-off catering. We asked the hotel to look into making bulgogi, japchae, and kimbap. They only ended up with the last one. Kimbap (or gimbap) is like sushi without the fish. We ended up choosing that as one of the cocktail hour canapés but were still bummed about the general lack of Korean food representation. We ended up ordering prime rib for the American option during the wedding reception. I hope my Hindu relatives were not too shocked!

In April, I had my bachelorette party. I had initially not wanted to do anything like that. The single bachelorette party I attended in my twenties involved bar-hopping and random guys sucking candy off of a shirt worn by the bride-to-be. Those things are not at all my style. I was, however, intrigued by the idea of a spa weekend. I did some googling and found a place in Gladwin, a couple of hours’ drive from metro Detroit. Riverwalk Place has some suites and I was able to book one that holds six people. In addition to my two bridesmaids, I invited three other friends to join us and paid for a two night package that would include two spa services for each of us. At first, I kind of regretted booking the place since nearly everybody had a lot of trouble booking their spa services but once we got there, it was very nice. I think the issue is that the hotel people are not well versed in the spa stuff but they are expected to make the appointments anyway. I paid for the whole trip because I knew it was going to add up and I have more money than any of my friends. It would have been seriously stressful for me to ask them to do this sort of thing then worry about whether they could pay for it. This way, everybody was happy! (I did ask them to be in charge of their own tips). I got a massage and a facial and it was very nice. I also made up some gift bags with towels, snacks, and a few toiletries. I do like buying personalized things; I think I get that from my mother. Anyway, I did a face mask and drank half a glass of wine and went to a pool that was weirdly not at the hotel itself but rather several miles down the street and also tiny with no hot tub but we had a great time overall. I took multiple naps and just basked in emotional support!

Other personalized things I bought for the wedding include robes for the ladies (in different colors and with names on them – not single-day things like “bridesmaid” or “flower girl”) and dopp kits for the men. I also realized that I did not have any favors for the sangeet and purchased custom fans. I did not read the description for those well enough and had to put the personalizing stickers on by hand, but it did not really take too long, maybe one episode of General Hospital! On a non-personalized note, I bought bangles for the ladies who joined me at mehndi (all size 2.8) and various stuff for welcome bags like snacks and Tums.

Once May hit, it was time to get our license! We took the morning off from our respective jobs and headed to downtown Detroit with our legal documentation. It turned out that the birth certificate my fiancé’s mother had given him was less a legal certificate and more a hospital announcement. Since he was born in Wayne County though, they said he could get a certified copy in the same office. Also, we had his passport for backup. What is notable about that whole situation is that when he filled out the application – I noticed that he had spelled his own middle name wrong! I think I will be teasing him with that one for a while yet.

Ugh, there was a lot of other planning involved, lots of details and spreadsheets and decisions but I guess that is all I can think of for now. Next, the actual wedding tale!