Tag cultural

After Part I and my over indul­gence of lassi we retrea­ted to Prabmeet’s hotel suite for a little down time. After regrou­ping my equip­ment and bac­king up the mor­nings pho­tos it was time to get back to it. The hair & makeup artist (who I also found out did the ama­zing henna) had arri­ved and was wor­king on trans­for­ming Prab for her eve­ning look.

She skil­fully applied the bindi and then I watched in awe as she gra­ce­fully fol­ded and dra­ped the sari.

When I first met with Prab & San­deep to talk about pho­to­graphy he was very dap­per and clean-​cut, he explai­ned that he would need to grow out his beard for a few weeks before the cere­mo­nies and during our down time he (gladly) got to shave again. I love love love their coör­di­na­ting colors.

They had a friend chauf­feur us to Post Office Square in Bos­ton. The gar­dens and archi­tec­ture there so lovely! We quickly knoc­ked out some (of my favo­rite ever) por­traits and jum­ped back in the car to head to the reception.

No really — these rank up there for my most favo­rite shoot ever.

Then we hea­ded back to the Davinci Res­tau­rant for an unbe­lie­va­ble eve­ning of dan­cing, laugh­ter and some of the most ama­zing food I’ve ever had.

Sim­ple, ele­gant details to not overwhelm the décor of this won­der­ful res­tau­rant. The win­dow to the open kitchen is a great touch and I watched them present

one plate after another more delec­ta­ble than the first.

After din­ner the dan­cing began and I’m not sure it ever stopped!

A few peo­ple didn’t dance the whole time,

but others didn’t stop once!

I took my leave of this cele­bra­tion shortly before mid­night exhaus­ted and exhi­la­ra­ted. And then my GPS died and I had to get lost in Yon­kers.. or no no, near Fen­way, at the end of a game. Either way I was una­mu­sed but nothing could take away the awe­so­me­ness of the things I’d expe­rein­ced (and eaten!)

Prab­meet & San­deep, Thank you for affor­ding me this oppor­tu­nity! It was a won­der­ful expe­rience and I’m so glad that I got to be a part of it.

~Melissa Koren

There are many things that I love and enjoy as a wed­ding pho­to­grapher and there are many things that I hope to check off my ‘buc­ket list’ during my (hope­fully very long career!) One of the first that I got to mark off was a tra­di­tio­nal Indian wed­ding. I was so hum­bled when Prab­meet & San­deep asked me to pho­to­graph their cere­mony and recep­tion and when the day finally came it was indescribable.

Admit­tedly, part of the indesc­ri­ba­ble­ness was due to very limi­ted English that was spo­ken but even that made everything that much more ama­zing and surreal, I just follo­wed along with my lens and docu­men­ted a day rich in tra­di­tion and family. I’ll try and inter­ject what I unders­tood (and remem­ber 8 months later) but I don’t want to do an injus­tice to the awesomeness.

I arri­ved at the hotel where San­deep was having his finishing touches applied by his sis­ter and other family members.

Then we hea­ded to the tem­ple for their wed­ding ceremony.

Once Prab­meet arri­ved San­deep was led to the front of the room while his bride was escor­ted up the aisle behind him.

She was pic­ture per­fect, I was speech­less when I saw her.

One of the things that Prab­meet and San­deep were very good about explai­ning to me was the the marriage cere­mony itself would con­sist of wal­king in 4 circ­les. And even though there was no English for me to unders­tand, the emo­tions were overwhel­ming and universal.

After the cere­mony we went back to the hotel for some more tra­di­tions and rituals, while we wai­ted for some things to be set up Prab­meet sho­wed me her tra­di­tio­nal acces­so­ries inc­lu­ding the com­ple­tely intri­cate henna that ador­ned her hands and feet.

More tra­di­tions follo­wed to finish off the morning’s epic celebration.

Before the first part was com­ple­tely over we snuck outside for some portraits.

With the first part of the day wrap­ped up we retur­ned to the hotel for a scrump­tious Indian Buf­fet lunch where I may or may not have over­done it on the mango las­sis and chic­ken tikka.

The rest of the after­noon is soon to come!

~Melis­sa­Ko­ren